


Might As Well

by darkzarrie



Category: One Direction (Band), Zayn Malik (Musician)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, Fluff and Angst, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Light Angst, M/M, Sex Work, based on a movie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-28
Updated: 2017-09-28
Packaged: 2018-12-02 06:13:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 41,224
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11503431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darkzarrie/pseuds/darkzarrie
Summary: Neighbor with the sexy voice goes by the name Zayn Malik. “Just call me Zayn, yeah?” he says with a mouth full of leftover doughnuts. Harry tries hard not to focus on the fact that he could fit a lot of things in his mouth at once.“I’m Harry,” he says, clearing his throat. “Harry Styles.”“Harry Styles sounds fake,” Zayn comments as he grabs another doughnut and takes a huge bite out of it. “Is that like your porn name or something?”“Yep,” he says as he nibbles on his own doughnut. “That’s the big secret.” Zayn chuckles in response.-AU: Harry Styles is a straight-arrow, overachiever who hasn't really lived his life to the fullest till he meets Zayn Malik, his seemingly-innocent new neighbor.





	Might As Well

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sparkage](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sparkage/gifts).



> Sparkage,  
> Thank you so much for your lovely prompts. I couldn't choose between the five prompts you submitted, so I chose two. I hope you like this.
> 
> Romy, precious angel too good for this world,  
> You've been amazing to me for the past few months. I cannot say thank you enough for helping me through this and for supporting me all the way, I really really appreciate it. You're an angel. (my onleh angel, whoo whoo)
> 
> To the moderators of this exchange,  
> Thank you also for the patience and the understanding. I know this took me a really long time, but here it is finally!
> 
> Hope you enjoy. x

 

Harry is having a bad day. Actually, ‘bad day’ is an understatement. Harry is having a shit day. A spectacular, grade-A, god-awful, shit-tastic day.

He rarely allows himself to wallow in his own misery and usually dwells in positive energy. _‘’Don’t let it weaken your good vibes,’’_ the digital woman who teaches him yoga would say while he does a _crow pose_.  He tried not to let it consume the goodness he had left but Harry just couldn’t help it. He just had to unleash the remaining positivity he had.

It all started off with Harry being late for his first class for the semester.

The night before the first day of class, Harry and his unreliable friends, Louis, Liam and Niall agreed to drink a bottle of beer each to _‘celebrate the start of a good year’_   Niall had said as he popped a bottle of beer open. Harry should have known better because later, one bottle turned into four.

He should have known that from the moment he saw Louis messing with his phone, that when Harry told him that he wouldn't skip the first day of classes with him and the others, that Louis would take matters into his own hands. And sure enough when Harry woke up the next day and sees that his class starts in five minutes, he knows that his senses didn't fail him.

The door opened with a loud _bang_ when Harry comes bursting through the door, out of breath. The class is composed of more or less twelve people. All twelve sets of eyes are turned in his direction, including a man with salt and pepper hair, who Harry guesses is his professor. _So much for making a good first impression._

“Good Morning, Mr -” he says with his eyebrows furrowed.

“Uh, Styles,” he says, rushing towards one of the empty seats at the back. He sees the old man roll his eyes and resumes with whatever he was saying.

“As I was saying before Mr Smiles’ grand entrance,” Salt and Pepper says, “my name is Walter Simmons and I’ll be your professor for this class.”

Harry doesn't know what’s worse. Being addressed as ‘Mr Smiles’ all throughout class or answering _“I used to be a baker”_ when he was asked by Salt and Pepper to introduce himself to the class. _Great. The kid next to me’s family is close to John Legend while here I am, the ex-baker._

 

**~ * ~**

 

Next, after his horrible first day back at school, was his first day back at work.

Whenever Harry was having a bad day, the cafe he works in, _Cathy’s_ , had a way of cheering him up. He loves how almost everyone who buys their drinks there are nice, loves his boss and the people he works with, loves the homey atmosphere inside that _Starbucks_ or _Krispy Kreme_ or some mainstream coffee shop cannot compare with. He was already starting to get his positive vibes back from the awful experience at school, when a middle aged woman came up to the counter with the coffee Harry made in her hand, eyebrows furrowed.

“Young man,” she says, nose pointing up in the air. “Where’s your manager?”

He remembers the words of his digital yoga instructor; _“Kill them with kindness.”_ Or maybe it was Selena Gomez’ song in the background as he was trying to focus on his handstands. Whichever it is, Harry’s tried it before and it always worked.

“Is there something wrong with the drink, ma’am?” he asks her politely.

“Nothing’s wrong,” she tells him sternly. “Where’s Cathy?”

“She’s at the back counting our inventory,” Harry informs her as he grabs an empty cup. “But if it has something to do with your drink, I’ll be more than happy to replace it with a new one.” He smiles at her, making sure that his dimples are in full bloom.

“No thank you,” she says, her tone a bit high pitched. “I want to speak to Cathy. Why won’t you make yourself useful and go get her.”

Harry looks at her, outraged. _The dimples always does the trick, what happened?_ Without another word, to preserve the optimism he has left,he turns around and fetches Cathy from the back. He tries to turn a deaf ear to the door, even though he could hear the woman complain that Jeff’s coffee  - the guy who worked here last summer - was much tastier than Harry’s. Harry used all his willpower not to go out and tell her that he’s worked at this cafe for two years and that he was the one who trained Jeff in making her perfect coffee.

Once she was gone and Cathy had patted him in the back as comfort, he took the coffee the woman had left earlier and tasted it. _No fucking wonder you didn’t like it, you added soy milk instead of the regular kind._

Like the coffee, Harry spent his first day back at work in a sour mood.

**~ * ~**

And lastly, just when Harry thought that the day was through and that things couldn't get any worse, he walks into his new neighbor’s door as he was walking in the hallway, returning back to his dorm.

“Fuck!” he says, putting a hand on his nose and carefully massaging it. He touches something gooey dripping from his nostrils  and sees a drip of blood.

_Fan-fucking-tastic. Why me?_

“Oh shit, I’m sorry,” he hears his neighbor say, his footsteps rushing towards Harry. “I’m really sorry, I didn't see you walk by, I’m-”

“Don’t worry about it,” Harry says, waving him off, deciding not to deal with the stranger with the sexy voice since he only has an ounce of patience left. “I’m fine.”He walks towards his door, hand still pinching his nose to keep it from bleeding.

Harry could hear his neighbor offer him some gauze as he opens his door, but instead of thanking him like the usual good person he is, he shuts the door in his face instead. He’ll have to make it up to him next time when he’s having a better day, he thinks as he slumps down on the bed, sighing in relief.

_One down, a few more to go._

Harry could hear neighbor with the sexy voice’s footsteps outside, he guesses he’s bringing his stuff into his dorm, which is the dorm across Harry’s. If Harry didn’t just face one of the worst days he’s ever had, he’d go out and apologize and maybe even offer to help.

Instead, he picks his laptop from the floor and balances it on his chest, types in a link in the browser’s address bar, plugs in his headset, unbuckles his belt and puts on a beanie and sunglasses and clicks the _call_ button.

He attempts to call for three times till his favorite stranger eventually answers, wearing sunglasses and a beanie just like Harry.

“Hey there Eric,” a smooth voice says. “Missed me?”

“Oh you have no idea.” Harry replies, already opening a tube of lube open.

 

**~ * ~**

 

His name is Aladdin. Correct term should be _screen_ name, but Aladdin is how he’s known in the _Cam Boy Universe_.

The boy with pretty lashes who wears different colored wigs or crazy hats every session so he can hide his true identity, _“Like a superhero,”_ he had said after Harry asked him what the masks were for after a couple of sessions. The boy who hides his perfect cheekbones with different masks, the boy who has Harry’s vote for best dick in the world.

Harry stumbled upon Aladdin’s page during the middle of his second year in Uni as he was going through Louis’ list of recommended porn sites, trying to look for something good to wank to.

A pop-out page appears on Harry’s computer screen. _For your eyes only,_ it reads.

Harry usually doesn’t entertain ads, guesses most of the ads contain computer viruses or something. He points his cursor over to the close button and just as he is a click away from closing the page, Louis suddenly bursts into the room, making Harry startle and click something else on the page. He chases Louis around the dorms till he retaliates by putting him in a headlock.

By the time he gets back to his dorm, he notices a person - well, not just a person. A beautiful person with beautiful tanned skin and mesmerizing eyes on the computer screen, half naked and in a blond wig.

“Anyone there?” he asks, waving at the camera.

Harry looks left and right, trying to see if this is a another one of Louis’ pranks but he remembers seeing Louis head into his and Liam’s shared dorm room and complaining about a paper he is supposed to finish.

He goes to put some sunglasses and a beanie on, because if Louis is recording this, he might as well be careful and make sure he’s not recognizable so he can’t use it against him.

“Um hey?” Harry says awkwardly, trying to deepen the tone of his voice and taking a seat in front of his laptop.

_Also, if this guy’s hiding half his face with his wig, I’ll hide mine too._

“Hey,” the stranger says, smirking at him.

“Hey,” he says again dumbly. Introductions aren’t really a specialty of his. “Um, not to be rude or anything but is there a reason why you’re on my computer screen?”

“Beats me,” he says as he leans down on the bed, looking at Harry darkly. “I guess you summoned me.”

“Summoned?” he replies with a gulp.

“My name is Aladdin,” he says, “You signed up for a free trial period.”

“A t-trial period?” Harry stutters. _What is this? Spotify or something?_

“Yeah, a trial session.” Aladdin says. “I’m here to convince you to sign up.”

“For what?”

Aladdin smirks at him a final time and goes to pull the boxers he has on down, revealing the hard dick he was hiding underneath the fabric. Harry watches with his mouth open wide. “Am I being convincing?” he asks. Harry nods in answer.

_Okay, I don’t exactly know what you want me to sign up for but please, sign me the fuck up._

And thus, their story begins.

 

**~ * ~**

 

“You’ll never guess what happened this week,” Aladdin says as he takes a seat at the center of the bed. “I moved towns, yeah? So I got this really cute neighbor. I met him last Monday and I was supposed to like, go and introduce myself but I ended up breaking his nose instead.”

“I guess that we’re both having a long week,” he says back.

It is Harry’s third session with Aladdin for the week and it is only Friday. He never expected his third year in college to be twice as hard as his second year, nor did he expect to drown in mountains of term work this early in the semester. Aladdin doesn’t seem to mind the sudden _‘emergency’_ sessions; he’ll always show up as scheduled, greeting Harry with his signature smirk as he sits in the middle of the bed with his wig and mask and Harry with his usual beanie and big sunglasses.

“Yeah I guess,” he says. “It’s too bad, my neighbor seemed really hot,” Aladdin continues as he arranges the green wig he is wearing this session. “I could see the perfect outline of his big dick through the tight jeans he was wearing.”

 _He’s one lucky guy_ , Harry thinks, a bit envious.

“But don’t worry love, your dick is better,” he says as if he read Harry’s mind. He changes the angle of the camera so it can have the perfect view of his bed.

“Anyway, you’re not here to listen to all this shit,” he says, smiling at him, his eyes going dark. “The time has _cum,_ ” he says, making movements with his right hand to look like he’s masturbating.

Harry chuckles at the pun. “Nah, I don’t really mind you talking,” he tells him. And it’s true. Some people would call him crazy but Harry’s favorite part during his videos are the times Aladdin shares some of the things that he’s been up to while he’s off-cam.

“You’re sweet,” he says and goes to unzip his jeans and pull his underwear down with them, and the image of his clean, cut dick fills Harry’s computer screen.

_Okay, maybe Aladdin’s short stories are just one of his favorites._

He takes himself in his hand and begins to stroke up and down, his caramel eyes gazing into the camera, as if he’s looking at Harry.

Harry follows suit, his dick surprisingly spurting out a lot of pre-cum despite the multiple wanks he had the past week.

“Can you imagine yourself doing this to me?” Aladdin asks, short of breath. His words make Harry’s cock twitch in interest.

Harry nods. “Y-yeah,” he admits. “A-all the time.”

“Yeah?” he replies with a glint in his eyes. Aladdin speeds the motion of his hands and Harry copies him. “Can - Can you tell me how badly you want to fuck me?”

“So - so bad, ugh,“ Harry moans, thrusting forward. Imagining he’s thrusting inside Aladdin’s hole. “So fucking bad.” Aladdin groans, and Harry can see cum dripping from his cock.

“R-really?” he pants. “You should fuck me now.”

It takes Harry a lot of willpower to stop himself from coming at Aladdin’s words. Aladdin lets go of his own dick and opens the drawer that’s beside his bed. Harry gasps at the sight of the pink vibrator and lube Aladdin throws on the bed. _Okay, they’ve never done this before._

Harry continues to play with himself while Aladdin squirts lube on his fingers, looking at the camera as he does this. _Think of sad thoughts_ , Harry thinks, trying his hardest not to come yet.

“Don’t stop, Babe,” Aladdin says, inserting a finger inside of himself. He pushes the finger in and out and Harry copies him. _Shiiiiiiiit._ Aladdin adds a second finger, moaning loudly as he pushes both of the fingers in.

Harry’s having trouble with his control. He thinks of dead animals, the smell of garbage, dead toenails, anything that could stop him from coming instantly. Precum spurts out of Aladdin’s dick and Harry knows he’s a goner. “Hurry,” Harry pleads as Aladdin inserts a third finger and scissors himself open. “I-I don’t think I c-can hold it in.”

“I like it when you’re being bossy,” Aladdin says, still scissoring himself open. “It turns me on.” Harry heaves. _Spiders, lizards, The Annabelle doll, open wounds._ Those somehow help out in delaying himself from coming.

Aladdin finishes opening himself up and goes to plug the vibrator in after putting a generous amount of lube on it. He clicks it on with a whirring buzz. Harry dick spurts out precum to show its excitement.

“I want you to imagine yourself in me,” Aladdin says and with that he starts to push the vibrator in. Harry moans along with him. He never thought things would get this intense with Aladdin. Hell, he never imagined himself to be in a type of relationship he and Aladdin have. Not that it’s really a relationship. A business relationship, maybe. Harry thrusts forward, copying the motion of the vibrator Aladdin is pushing inside him.

“F-faster,” Harry pants, speeding up his strokes. Aladdin does as he’s told and thrusts at an increased speed. _Fuck fuck fuck fuck._

“You make me feel so good,” Aladdin says, his eyes closed and still pushing the vibrator in and out. “So fucking good.”

“Please,” Harry begs, he feels like he’s on the edge. He’s coming.

“Wh-what do you want babe?” Aladdin asks, short of breath.

“I-I want you to come with m-me.” A few more strokes from Harry and he’s coming all over the hand he has wrapped around himself. He groans loudly, not caring if his neighbor with the sexy voice hears. Aladdin follows suit, coming untouched. _Wow._

They stare at each other while catching their breath. Their cocks softening and eyelids falling. “Why didn’t we do that before?” Harry asks him once he gets his breathing under control.

“I don’t usually put on a show like that,” he answers, lying down, fighting to stay awake. “And you were the only nice client and person to me today.”

“I like listening to you rant,” Harry tells him, sleep taking over his senses. Aladdin hums his response, yawning and positioning himself comfortably in his bed. “I guess I’ll see you later. You look tired.”

“So do you,” he replies, his eyes closing and opening.

“It’s all thanks to you.” Harry thinks back to the day he met Aladdin and decides that accidentally clicking on the ad was best mistake he ever made. He should thank Louis for giving him a list of his favorite porn sites. He should buy him and the lads a drink tomorrow.

“Same here,” he says. “See you later, Jasmine.” And with that, the chat closes, and Harry goes to bed. He figures that a good wank and nice long nap is one good way to end the bad week. He closes his eyes and sleeps the rest of the Friday away.

 

**~ * ~**

 

It’s Saturday, or _‘Saturyay’_ as Niall likes to call it. It is that day of the week when almost everyone has the day off from the mountains of school work and it also is that time of week when Harry and the lads get together to chill.

This Satur _yay_ , the four of them are at one of the high-end clubs located near the dorms, that play nonstop house music all night.

Harry doesn’t know which is worse, the exaggerated volume of the EDM music playing through the club’s speakers or Louis’ consistent nagging over his “obsession” with Aladdin. Harry could not feel the ‘yay’ in the _Saturyay._

“You barely even know the guy, Haz,” Louis scolds, pointing his beer at him. Being the mom-friend he is. “Is Aladdin even his real name? What if he’s a serial killer? What if..” Harry zones out since he knows Louis’ rants tend to go on forever.

He keeps a straight face, pretending to listen to him but really observing the club over Louis’ shoulder. He sees girls jumping up and down on the club’s makeshift dance floor, trying to lure some good looking guys with their striking looks and impressive dance moves, and even catches a couple of freshmen trying to sneak some pictures of pretty sophomore girls.

He sees everyone; the guys and gals at the bar looking for someone to spend the night with. A lot is going on at the same time. It fascinates Harry how life just goes on for different people. On one hand, he sees the two girls he noticed flirting with each other earlier, now clutching each other tightly and hurriedly making their way to the bathroom. _Good for them,_ he thinks, glancing at a still-talking Louis.

“- I think we should go out more,” he says, looking at Harry seriously. “I think you need to start dating again.”

“Lou, we went over this a hundred times,” he replies, taking a sip of his drink. “The Aladdin thing is nothing. Just something to pass the time.”

“You pay him, Harry!”

“Well, It’s good camera sex,” he argues, consuming more alcohol. “And his cock is so -”

“Okay okay, I’ve heard enough,” Niall says, waving his hand in between them, breaking up their brewing fight. “Would you give it a rest already, Lou? It’s _Saturyay_ for goodness’ sake.”

“Yeah,” Liam interjects, his face already pink. “And so what if Harry pays for sex?” _Someone’s not sober._

“Thanks guys,” Harry deadpans, a group of girls who Harry has class with turns to their table and looks at him with judgy looks on their faces. He smacks his hand on his forehead. “Thanks a lot.”

“What are friends for, right?” Liam says earnestly, raising his glass to toast it to Harry’s. He toasts his glass back anyway whilst shaking his head.

“I still think it’s unhealthy,” Louis says, standing up with two wobbly feet. “And all it’ll promote is a sad and lonely life.”

“At least he’s wanking to an actual live person, Lou,” Niall pipes in, looking at Harry mischievously.

“Shut up Niall,” Harry says with a roll of his eyes. It’s times like this Harry wonders why he hangs out with his so-called friends.

“I remem - _hic_ \- ber,” Liam hiccups, pointing at Harry with excited eyes. “What was that singer’s name in the poster you kept in your -”

“Is it really Saturyay today or is it Satur - make loud and inappropriate comments about Harry’s life - day today?” he asks irritably, drinking the rest of the alcohol he has in his glass. _I hate my friends._

“We’re just saying, Haz,” Niall says, finishing his beer and setting it down the table. “When was the last time you had sex? Better yet, When was the last time you’ve been on a date?”

Harry stands and collects his friends’ empty glasses. “Next round’s on me,” he says, not answering Niall’s question, and before any of them can respond he heads to the bar to get a refill. He could hear the assholes’ howls of laughter from a few feet away.

As Harry waits for the bartender to prepare their drinks, he registers the things the idiots he calls his friends said. Yeah, he hasn’t be dating and sleeping around and all that for a while but he was busy with school and just got out of a crazy relationship. Yes. That relationship ended more than a year ago - but still. Harry has gotten to the point in his life where he’s done hooking up and going out on dates just to see what the person is like. He wants the real deal, the long term kind of relationship, _the one_.

He scans the club as he tries to think of a good comeback when his attention is caught by a guy with red hair sitting alone at an empty table, whiskey forgotten on the table with a book propped open. _Well, that’s one thing you don’t see everyday._

Guy with the book puts his book down and goes to take a sip of his drink, when their eyes meet, something draws Harry to him. Maybe it has something to do with thinking of all the long term kind of love or Louis wanting him to get into a relationship or whatever, maybe it’s love or maybe it’s just the growing hard on he’s hiding in his jeans but he wants to go over to him to introduce himself.

 _It has been a while. Why not try again? Why not prove to the assholes known as my friends that I can still take someone home and actually get some tonight. Maybe even be in a real relationship._ Harry hears Liam and Louis mock him from their table. _Or maybe just take someone home tonight. I’ll just add the love bit in growing bucket list._

He orders another shot of tequila as the bartender finishes fixing their drinks, toasts it to no one in particular and heads back to the lads.

“You’re right,” Harry says, depositing the drinks he was balancing in his hands on the table. “All of you, you’re all right.”

“About what?” Liam asks, retrieving and sipping the drink Harry bought him. “About the not getting enough sex thing?”

“The only getting paid video sex thing?” Louis asks.

“Or the nearly being a virgin again thing?” Niall suggests with a laugh. The same group of girls who gave Harry judgmental faces earlier pass their table again but this time, Harry receives a couple of eye rolls from them.

“Can you all just pipe down?” he scolds, looking left and right. “You’re _all_ right. I haven’t been going out too much.”

“If you spend less time on those volunteer things you might actually have a chance at the dating life you know,” Niall says.

“Yeah and karaoke too,” Liam pipes in. “You spend too much time doing that.”

“For your information, Liam. Karaoke is a huge stress reliever,” Harry says, pointing a finger at him, outraged.

“Only person who said that aside from you is my nan,” Louis says. He joins in on Liam and Niall’s snickering. _Alright, that’s it. Enough’s enough. No more Mister Nice Guy._

“Why don’t we make a deal?” Harry says, sitting down beside Louis and looking at each of them like a businessman going after a sweet deal. “If I get myself a girl or a boyfriend by the end of the year, you all have to streak around campus in broad daylight.”

Niall and Liam’s laughter is replaced with the sound of silence whereas Louis looks at him as if he’s analyzing. _Music to my ears. That shut them up. “_ If I don’t get myself a boy or girlfriend,” he continues, “then I’ll streak around the campus.”

“What about Red Cross?” Louis asks, eyes not leaving Harry’s. “Won’t you miss all the volunteers and shit?”

He smirks at him. Typical Louis. Discreetly trying to make Harry withdraw his offer.

“Was thinking of quitting that anyway.”

“The animal shelter?”

“I could take less hours,” Harry says, crossing his arms. _That’s right Louis Tomlinson. No backing out now._

“What about karaoke?” Niall asks. “Everyone hates Karaoke. I bet you’ll break up the moment he or she finds out.”

Harry only shrugs at him. “Do we have a deal or are you all chicken shit?” he asks as he takes a drink from his glass. _Louis’ going to snap any moment now._

“Don’t flatter yourself, Styles,” Louis says, eyebrows furrowed. “Of course we’re in.”

“We are?” Liam asks with both eyebrows raised.

“We are,” Louis repeats. Niall and Liam look at each other with worried looks on their faces.

“Well then,” Harry says, breaking the silence. He looks at each of his friends a final time as he drinks the rest of the beer in his glass and stands. “Think it’s time I prove you all wrong.” And with that, he gets to his feet and looks for the guy earlier with the book.

He goes to the guy’s table but is only met with a half empty glass of whiskey. _Okaaay, where the fuck are you?_ He looks left and right and spots him heading towards the exit, book in hand. _Wait, where are you going? That’s not part of the plan._

“Hey!” he calls after him. Guy with the book doesn’t look back. Harry makes his way across the dance floor, dodging dancing bodies left and right, purposely splitting a couple who’s kissing. “Sorry,” he mutters to them as he tries to run across the dance floor. “Hey! Book guy!”

Guy with the book stops in his tracks and turns to look at Harry with a puzzled look on his face. Once Harry’s successful in freeing himself from the crazy dance floor, he offers the guy a dimpling smile,which Guy with the book returns. _Okay that’s more like it._

Harry walks over to him, already rehearsing the lines he is going to tell him. Guy with the book stays in place, watching Harry. “Hi,” Harry starts to say once the guy’s within earshot, his voice sounding confident. “I’m Harry. Nice -” and just when Harry’s only a few feet away from him, he steps on something cold and slippery. _Oh my fucking fuck._

It’s like everything happens in slow motion. Harry sees the way Guy with the book’s facial expression changes from flirtatious to surprised to fearful. The way the people around them slowly turn their surprised and amused faces to him. If Harry has a magic genie right now, he’d waste one of his wishes to re-do that entire moment, but unfortunately he doesn’t have a genie. All Harry can do nothing is close his eyes and brace himself as he literally ice skates towards the guy he planned to take home.

_The only thing I’m gonna get tonight is a sore ass and it’s not even the good kind._

He hits and lands on Guy with the Book with a loud _thump_! “Get off me,” Harry hears him say from underneath him. “What is wrong with you?” He pushes Harry’s body to the side and off of his body like a rag doll.

Once he’s up and has dusted off his clothes, he gives Harry one final annoyed look and takes off towards the exit, leaving Harry lying down on the floor like a complete fool. He can hear his friends’ roars of laughter from across the dancefloor.

He looks at the exit sign whilst laying down and sighs in defeat.   _Ice-talavista, baby._

 

**~ * ~**

 

Harry’s keys hit the floor for the _nth_ time. _This is the last time I let Louis, Liam and Niall talk and make fun about my sex - well, wank life, while we’re all under the influence of alcohol._

He tries to look for the keys that refuse to go inside the keyhole. “Stupid keys,” Harry hiccups, crawling in the hallway, looking for them. “Where the hell are you?!”

He leans back against the wall as soon as he gets to his feet. _I’m giving up. I’ll just sleep here and maybe probably die due to students mistaking my body for a rug. Stupid keys._ He’s slowly sliding down the wall - about to lie down and begin to sleep and live life as a floor rug - when he catches the silhouette of someone by the end of the hallway.

He goes to squint his eyes to check if he’s just seeing things or whatever when-

“Need help?” a voice asks out of nowhere, making Harry’s heart skip a beat.

“Oh shit!” Harry exclaims, completely sliding down the wall and hitting his head on the tiles, making him three times more dizzy. _Can I stop embarrassing myself already? God, that’s the second time I cracked my head open._

“Hey, you okay?” the voice asks, becoming louder followed by the sound of footsteps rushing towards Harry.

“Are you a ghost?” Harry asks quietly, not daring to look at the source of the voice. If Harry could name a few things he is scared of, the top of his list would be spirits, especially the vengeful and playful ones. “Cause I don’t want to play and be possessed. My mate Louis though..”

He hears the voice chuckle. “You’re clearly pissed as fuck, mate,” it says again - but this time Harry knows who the owner of the voice is. He recognizes it from the door-slamming-in-his-face incident a few days ago. Neighbor with the sexy voice.

“It’s you,” Harry says with a relieved sigh. He hears Neighbor with the sexy voice’s amused scoff followed by the jingle of keys. Harry suspects it’s the same keys that refused to cooperate with him. “Don’t even bother with that.”

“With what?” Neighbor with the sexy voice asks. Harry hears the click of the lock and a door opening. “Here you go, mate.”

“Oh my god,” Harry says, attempting to stand so he could give him a hug but ending up tripping over his feet and Neighbor with the sexy voice catching him mid-fall.

“Hey,” he hears him say, hands around Harry’s body. “Be careful.”

“My hero,” Harry says a little too dramatically once he composes himself. He grabs onto Neighbor with the sexy voice’s cheeks and tries to make out the squiggly lines he’s seeing that are supposed to be his savior’s face.

Neighbor with the sexy voice only chuckles at him. “All in a day’s work, I guess,” he says with a shrug. Harry could feel his grin widen from under his palms.

“You’re amazing,” he tells him drunkenly. Harry can smell the scent of alcohol coming from his mouth. “And I really wish I wasn’t wasted right now so I could thank you properly or at least look at your seemingly-good looking face.”

_I’m going to hate myself in the morning, I can feel it._

“Don’t worry about it,” Neighbor with the sexy voice says, sounding unsure.

“But for what it’s worth,” Harry says with a hiccup. “The alcohol I consumed didn’t affect my hearing so I want you to know that your voice is so fucking sexy.”

“Uh... thanks?” They stay like that, with Harry’s hands on his neighbor’s perfect cheekbones for a long time, long enough for Harry’s drunken stupor to wither down and realize how foolish he’s acting.

“Okay so if you’ll excuse me,” Harry says, letting go of his face and heading towards his front door. “My humble abode awaits.”

“That’s _my_ humble abode,” Neighbor with the sexy voice says. _Okay, no wonder the floors are littered with clothes_.

“Oh.”

“Here, let me help you,” he says. Harry feels how his neighbor’s arm wraps around his waist and how he puts one of Harry’s paralyzed arms around his neck.  

“You’re a fucking saint,” Harry says as he focuses on ordering his two feet to take one step at a time. He hears him chuckle in response. _Forget Neighbor with the sexy voice. Make that Neighbor with the sexy voice and cute chuckle._

Together they walk towards Harry’s dorm; Neighbor with the sexy voice gently guiding him and muttering encouragements at him as they go over to Harry’s bed.

“Whoopsie daisies,” Neighbor with the sexy voice and cute chuckle says as they reach the bed. Harry lays down flat on his back, his eyes slowly dropping. “Stay here,” Harry hears him say as he throws a blanket over his body.

Harry can feel his consciousness ebbing away, eyes growing heavier the longer he lies comfortably in bed listening to Neighbor with the sexy voice and cute chuckle move around the room and open closets. “Get anything you want from the mini fridge and my junk food stash,” Harry says, his voice scratchy from the alcohol and his drowsiness.

“Where do you keep your Advil?” he hears him ask.

“Bedside table drawer,” Harry replies with a yawn, attempting to keep his eyes  cracked open.

He hears a drawer open and close, followed by Neighbor with the sexy voice saying, “Here.” Harry’s too tired to ask what it is that he wants but he does catch him placing something on Harry’s bedside table from the corner of his tired eyes.

“Take this Advil as soon as you wake up,” he instructs, removing Harry’s boots and pants. “It’ll help with the hangover okay?

“Okay,” he replies. This isn’t exactly how Harry planned the night but he’ll take it. Neighbor with the sexy voice tucks Harry in bed and heads towards the exit.

“Hey,” he calls to him, realizing he still hasn’t thanked him. “Neighbor with the sexy voice and cute chuckle.”

He hears his signature cute chuckle. “What did you just call me?” he asks turning to face Harry again. _Okay you might look like a giant big blur, but you’re the prettiest blur I’ve ever seen._

“Nothing,” Harry says as lies on his back and focuses on Neighbor with the sexy voice and cute chuckle’s face. “I just wanted to thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” he replies. Harry, even in his drunken state, manages to make out the shining hazels known as Neighbor with the sexy voice and cute chuckle’s eyes. “Now go to sleep.” And with that, Harry falls asleep almost immediately. He dreams of good-looking, hazel-eyed nurses taking care of him that night.

 

**~ * ~**

 

The first thing Harry thinks the moment he opens his eyes is _Jesus Christ, was I really a big tit to my neighbor last night?_

He checks his bedside table and sees the glass of water and Advil Neighbor with the sexy voice and cute chuckle left the night before, confirming that the night indeed happened. _I am never drinking a shot of tequila ever again._

He reaches for the Advil and glass of water whilst groaning since his hangover is starting to kick in and lies down for a few minutes, thinking of ways to redeem himself from all the embarrassing things he’s done the night before.

Once he’s up and his teeth are brushed, Harry makes the decision to stop by the dorm next door and offer leftover doughnuts and tea for Neighbor with the sexy voice and cute chuckle as thanks. They got off on the wrong foot at the time they met and he thinks it’s about time that he befriends him.

He takes the dough nuts out of his mini fridge and places each of them on the plate his mum made him bring and pours hot water in the mugs that his mother also snuck inside his moving boxes. _Thank god for mothers._

By the time everything’s all set and Harry has managed to make himself look half-presentable, he heads to the door opposite his and rings the doorbell. _Act cool, you got this. Remember what digital lady said, “Don’t look back, you’re not going that way.’’_

He waits for a few minutes but no one answers. _Maybe he’s still asleep?_ He pushes the doorbell button a second time but the door remains closed. _Maybe he went out? After all, it is almost noon._

He heaves a sigh at his failed attempt to thank the boy next door. _Maybe next time._ He places the doughnuts on his neighbor’s doorstep. He doesn’t care if Neighbor with the sexy voice will eat them or not, the important thing is he’ll know Harry appreciates him.

He attempts to stand again but thanks to his lack of balance and un-sober state of mind, he trips and hits his head on his neighbor’s door. _Can I stop giving myself a fucking concussion?_

Harry was about to turn around and head back inside his dorm, but he notices the door belonging to his neighbor is now open. _Maybe he forgot to lock his door when left?_ He goes to push the door open so he could lock it for him but stops midway as he gets a good look of what’s inside.

Apparently, his neighbor’s voice isn’t the only that’s sexy about him. He has a fine sexy ass as well. _Pervert of the Day goes to Harry Edward Styles._

Harry doesn’t understand as to why his body wouldn’t respond whenever his brain would instruct him to look away. He isn’t the type to hang out in his neighbor’s doorway and watch his neighbor undress, he deems himself respectful and honest and all that but somehow, he just cannot look away. He cannot stop imagining himself running his tongue across his neighbor’s fantail tattoo and sticking a finger up his - _Okay, getting carried away now. Time to go_.

Harry was just about to turn around to head back inside his dorm and probably jack himself off when his neighbor turns around and the view changes from his perfect ass to his perfect dick. _Holy shit. Good grief._

“Hey!” his neighbor shouts the same time Harry drops the plate of doughnuts he was holding.

“Shit,” Harry mutters, dropping down to pick up the broken pieces of glass. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know you were dressing up. I - “ he stops rambling mid sentence as soon as Harry looks up to look at his face for the first time properly.

Harry swears his jaw hit the floor. His neighbor is the most beautiful man he has ever seen in his life. He has beautiful golden skin, cheekbones that could probably cut through diamonds, eyelashes that could rival all his exes’ eyelashes combined together and beautiful raven hair, cut at the sides. He’s probably an angel.

“What gives?” he says angrily, taking Harry right back to reality. _Right, I’m technically acting like a fucking perv right now._

Harry should say sorry. Apologize. Explain himself. Anything. But all he does is stare at him dumbly.

“Well?” he says again, now half-clothed, which didn’t actually help Harry recover on account of the tattoos littered around his torso. He opens his mouth to apologize but nothing comes out. Neighbor with the sexy voice raises an eyebrow at him, something all Harry can do is turn around and run back inside his apartment.

 

**~ * ~**

Harry quickly throws away the doughnuts the moment his door closes and slides down on the wall. “What the fuck were you thinking,” Harry mutters to himself, lightly hitting his head against the wall. “What were you thinking, what were you thinking..”

He stays on the floor for a while, wishing it could swallow him whole. That was the single most embarrassing thing he has ever done in his life. How can he possibly look his neighbor in the eye again after that?

 _I know, I’ll just avoid him for the rest of my life_. He nods to himself as he recites the plan over and over his head.

_How hard can avoiding your next door neighbor be?_

He was about to head out and start working on the plan when he hears his doorknob jingle. _Oh fuck._ He stares at the door and gasps as soon as he sees his neighbor push it open. _Ten seconds into the plan and I’ve already failed._

He stares at him with a dumbfounded look on his face. Harry’s not really sure f he needs to confront him or run for his life. Neighbor with the sexy voice stares back at him with a scary scowl on his face. _Running for his life seems like a good plan._

“Um,” Harry says awkwardly, looking up at him with wide eyes. “Hi?”

Neighbor with the sexy voice doesn’t reply, only stares back at Harry with a blank look on his face. Harry’s not quite sure as to how to apologize to a person you’ve been watching strip naked. He was just about to open his mouth to utter an apology, but he doesn’t get the chance.

“Like what you saw?” he asks, crossing his arms. “You know, after everything I did for you last night, I was hoping you’d at least not be an ass to me.”

“No! It was all a big mistake. I wasn’t trying to watch - I was just trying -” Harry says, stuttering. “I was trying to see if you’d like to eat me - I mean-” he groans at his poor attempts of explaining. _This is a fucking nightmare._

“What?” he exclaims, both eyebrows raised.

Harry huffs out a breath of frustration, trying to look around his dorm for inspiration. His gaze lands on the box of doughnuts he left on his desk. He quickly runs over to it and goes to offer it to him. “Doughnuts?” he says as a form of explanation.

“You’re one odd fellow, mate,” Neighbor with the sexy voice says, not taking Harry on his offer of doughnuts. “Look, just stop doing that okay?”

“I wasn’t trying to be a pervert or something,” Harry starts to say, setting the box of doughnuts back on the desk. “I just wanted to see if you wanted to get breakfast with me.”

“Breakfast?” he asks, “What for?”

“For last night,” Harry says. “For helping me get inside my apartment.”

“I thought I told you that it was all good.”

“I know, I know. I dunno, I just wanted to thank you being nice to me is all,” Harry says with a shrug. “If you were my neighbor last year, you’d have left me sleeping in front of my door.”

“Well, I _did_ owe you for breaking your nose,” he says as he points at Harry’s face. “But still, that doesn’t give you an excuse to go barging inside my dorm and watch me.”

“Look,” Harry says, trying to get his head together so he can form a coherent sentence. “I know it didn’t look like I was trying to invite your for breakfast-”

“You could say that again,” he hears him mutter.

“-but it was your door’s fault. I thought you were out and I was just gonna leave the food in your doorstep when it opened,” he explains. “I didn’t expect to see -” he gestures towards his body. “- _that._ ”

“So you’re trying to tell me that all of that was accident?” he says, unbelieving.

“Yes,” Harry says. _Well, if you put it that way it sounds like I’m a lying pervert but by all means, please forgive me._

“And you were just trying to bring me doughnuts?”

“And tea,” Harry says, presenting the box of tea lying on the table. He stares at Harry and the tea he has in his hands. Silence fills the corners of Harry’s dorm. He was about to ask him if he’s alright but-

“Sure,” he says, edge of his lips curling into what looks like a smile. “I’d like to have tea and cold doughnuts with you.”  

_What the fuck just happened?_

**~ * ~**

 

Neighbor with the sexy voice goes by the name Zayn Malik. “Just call me Zayn, yeah?” he says with a mouth full of leftover doughnuts. Harry tries hard not to focus on the fact that he could fit a lot of things in his mouth at once.

“I’m Harry,” he says, clearing his throat. “Harry Styles. _”_

“Harry Styles sounds fake,” Zayn comments as he grabs another doughnut and takes a huge bite out of it. “Is that like your porn name or something?”

“Yep,” he says as he nibbles on his doughnut. “That’s the big secret.” Zayn chuckles in response.

Harry’s still confused - _and suspicious_ \- but grateful all the same for Zayn’s sudden change in mood and sudden interest in accepting his offer of breakfast. He hasn’t done anything crazy, doesn’t even seem bothered that only ten minutes ago the same person he was eating breakfast with was checking out his naked body. Not that Harry’s complaining.

Zayn indulges him in making small talk, commenting on the weather and asking Harry what he is majoring in.

“Really?” he says with wide eyes when Harry reveals he is a _Music_ major. “Are you a good singer, then? Want to sing in stadiums and all that?”

“I’m not that bad,” Harry says. “And yeah, I also like writing lyrics.”

“Cool.”

Harry waits and waits, watching him with his guard high, waiting for him to do something. But an hour has passed and Zayn hasn’t done anything.

After they’ve - or Zayn more like - finished all of the leftover doughnuts, Harry stands to clean up, with Zayn going around to help him. Once everything’s thrown away and the plates are placed in the sink, waiting to be washed, they turn to face each other.

“Thanks for the doughnuts,” Zayn says, hands in his pockets and looking innocent. _Maybe a little too innocent_

“Sure,” Harry responds. “Thanks for being cool with the whole -” he tries to gesture with his hands.

“Oh,” he says, scratching his head. “Yeah, yeah.”

“So, are we good then?” Harry asks, taking a step towards him. “Mates?” Harry offers him a hand for him to shake, and Zayn takes it.

“Mates,” he says, and without notice he pulls Harry towards him and begins to kiss him. _Well that escalated quickly._

It takes a while before Harry’s body reacts but he eventually kisses him back. He can taste the tea and doughnuts as he licks inside his mouth. Zayn wraps his arms around Harry’s neck and Harry wraps his around Zayn’s waist. Harry had almost forgotten how good it feels to have another pair of lips against his, to taste someone else.

Warning bells are ringing inside of his head but he finds himself helpless. Especially when Zayn tilts his head up, allowing Harry to access his neck. He creates a route for his lips, from Zayn’s lips, to this cheek, to his chin and then to his neck. Harry could feel Zayn’s fingernails dig through his back as he sucks a mark on the part where his neck and shoulder meet.

“Off,” he hears him whisper, tugging at his sweatpants. “I want this off.”

Those words automatically send a message towards Harry’s dick, awakening it instantly. He takes off his bottoms, not waiting to be told a third time.

“You look so good, babe,” Zayn says as he massages his sides, eyes mischievous. “So fucking good.”

As soon as Harry’s stark naked, they kiss again. Zayn’s hands travel all around Harry’s body, making him twice as needy as he was before. Harry’s getting antsy, wants Zayn to be as naked as him, wants him to do something, anything.

“Do something,” Harry says, lips against his. “Please.”

“Wait,” Zayn says, breaking away from Harry and rushing over to the table. “Stay there, I’m just gonna get something really quick.”

“Make it quick,” Harry says as he lies down on the bed. He gives himself a couple of strokes as he waits.

“Just gimme one more second,” Zayn singsongs. As soon as he gets whatever it was that he was supposed to get, he faces Harry with one hand behind his back.

“What do you got there behind your back?” Harry asks, still running a hand up and down his dick. “Is that a surprise?”

“Guess you can call it that,” he says with a shrug, taking a couple of slow steps towards Harry.

“Well c’mon,” Harry whines, leaning his back against his bed frame. “Do somet-”

Before Harry can even finish what he’s saying, Zayn reveals that he was hiding his phone behind his back and immediately takes a couple of pictures of Harry. _When I said ‘do something,’ I meant do something sexual to me._

“What the fuck,” Harry squeaks, crawling off the bed and retrieving his clothes from the floor. “What the hell, Zayn?” He knew something like this would happen.

“It’s not so nice when your privacy’s the one being invaded, right?” he says, still taking pictures.

“I told you I was sorry,” Harry says as soon as he has his sweatpants back on. “And it was an accident, this is clearly intentional!” He takes a few steps towards Zayn to steal the phone from him, but Zayn is quick. He avoids Harry’s every attempt in getting the phone from him.

“Please,” Harry says, giving up on trying to get the phone from him. He deposits himself in his his bed and looks up at Zayn defeatingly.

“Okay,” Zayn says with a shit-eating grin. “And it’s only because you asked nicely.”

Harry rolls his eyes at him and goes to get the phone from him again to delete the pictures, but the moment Harry’s hand is only a few inches away from the phone, Zayn avoids him again.

“Come on, Zayn. I thought you were gonna give it?” Harry whines as he ruffles his curls. “C’mon, please.”

“I have one condition, though,” he says, showing the phone that’s dangling in his hand. Harry tries to grab it, but curse Zayn for having the reflexes of a ninja. “No. Actually, make that two conditions.”

“Alright, fine,” Harry says, defeated. “Like I have a choice.”

“Good,” Zayn says, business like. “Condition one: I need a key for your dorm or I need to at least know where you hide your spare key.”

“What for?” Harry asks, eyebrows raised. _Am I dreaming? Am I still drunk and sound asleep in my head? If so, now is a good time to wake up._

“Condition two,” Zayn continues, ignoring him completely. “I want access to all your school supplies, books and your mini fridge.”

“What?” Harry says, still trying to make sense of the past five minutes. This will be the last time he’ll ignore his intuition.

“You heard me,” he says, crossing his arms. Harry may be taller and buffer than him, but Zayn sure is more intimidating. Good looking and all that, but still intimidating.

“But why?”

“If you haven’t noticed, the store is more than a few blocks away.” he starts to explain, walking over to Harry’s desk and going through the pens stored in an empty coffee mug. “Your dorm is the next best thing if I don’t feel like walking a long way just to buy a pen.”

“Then buy lots of them so you won’t have to,” Harry suggests. Zayn cocks an eyebrow at him and stares, face void of emotion. “Ugh, fine.”

“Good,” he says, grabbing the brand new pad of paper that Harry just bought. Guess he’ll have to double his shopping from now on. “Just leave the spare key under your doormat.”

Zayn nods at goes out the door. “Wait, the pictures?” Harry calls after his retreating figure.

“Are safe with me,” he says, looking over his shoulder and giving him a secretive smile. And without another word, he exits the room, leaving Harry staring at the closed door for a few seconds. _For the hundredth time, what the flying fuck just happened?!_

**~ * ~**

 

If Harry thought he could win Salt and Pepper’s trust back easily after that horrible first encounter back in their first day of class, he was wrong. Seems like the old man uses first impressions to categorize if a person is shitty or not.

Two weeks passed and he still calls Harry ‘Mr Smiles.’ Harry even tried to correct him, but all he got was a raise of his eyebrows. Some days, Salt and Pepper uses Harry to explain something, like _“Let’s say for example Mr Smiles over here,”_  or _“Mr Smiles, stand up and do this so the others can see.”_

Harry tried to play by his rules so he could somehow redeem himself but so far, not so good.

Today he’s sitting in the back of the class, not really in the mood to be made fun of due to the lack of sleep the night before - all thanks to Zayn, who decided to barge into Harry’s dorm in the middle of the night, making a huge racket going through Harry’s desk.

Harry doesn’t really have a problem with Zayn taking some of his stuff because most of the time, he’ll find the items Zayn borrowed sitting on top of Harry’s desk with a crumpled note saying _‘thanks. - z.’_ The only issue Harry has with the whole thing is his incapability to wank in peace or call Aladdin for a session, for the fear of Zayn walking in on him and finding him twice as perverted as usual.

He watches Salt and Pepper scribble some words on the blackboard up front, trying to battle his eyelids and keep them from falling shut. _I am so going to call Aladdin later. It has been too long._

“All ears on me and all eyes on the board,” Salt and Pepper says, dropping the piece of chalk he was writing with inside a box and slowly walking to the center of the class. “What does it read?”

Harry turns his attention to the board and mentally reads, _I will always remember._

“I will always remember,” Salt and Pepper says aloud, looking at the class excitedly, waving his teaching stick around as if he’s a conductor in an orchestra. “What is the first thing that comes to mind?”

Harry recalls the shocked face of the redhead at the bar, Zayn’s naked body, Harry’s nude pictures in Zayn’s phone. Aladdin’s dick. _Ugh. Nevermind._

“Is it something good or something bad?” Salt and Pepper asks the class. _A little bit of both, that’s for sure._

“As for me,” he continues to discuss, walking around the room and waving his stick around. “I will always remember my senior year. And no, I’m talking about sixth form, not my senior citizenship.” The class chuckles along with him. Harry on the other hand, resists the urge to roll his eyes.

“It was the year before I moved to uni,” he says, taking a seat on an empty chair at the back, besides Harry. He feels obliged to listen.”I played footie back in the day and I’ll always remember the expression of the opposing team’s goalie when I kicked the winning goal in.”

He sighs deeply, probably reminiscing that moment. After a moment he gets to his feet and faces Harry. “What about you, Mr Smiles?” he asks, crossing his arms. “What will you always remember?”

 _Tell him about anything but you being an ex baker,_ he tells himself. “Uhm,” Harry says, trying to think of something clever to say. _Think Styles._

Salt and Pepper raises an eyebrow at him and Harry tells him the first thing that popped inside his head.”Uh I-I used to be a, uh -”

“A what, Mr Smiles?”

“A ba- bartender,” Harry lies. Thousands of jobs he could choose from to be his fake old job and he goes with that one. He was better off saying his favorite _‘I used to be a baker’_ line. 

“What about it? he asks, intrigued.

“Well,” Harry says, putting his hands together and trying to think of something intelligent to say. “I got to meet a lot of people.”

“Uh huh,” he says after a long pause. _Well, that sounded a whole lot intelligent. Good job, Styles._

“Anyway, this brings me to your end of the year school project,” Salt and Pepper says, walking towards the blackboard and smacking his teacher stick on the board loudly. “Essay and Speech.” The class erupts in quiet discussions, asking the person next to them their opinion on it.  

An essay and a speech. Harry’s always been good at writing essays, he even has a fairly good grade in his creative writing class. He’s also not the type to get nervous in front of an audience. So everything seems all good except -

“Write about anything that happened under the sun,” Salt and Pepper says after he explains the deadlines of the draft. “The dirtier the details, the better!”

The whole class laughs along with him. Harry just looks at him with a blank look and thinks, _I hope the bathrooms I clean everyday at work are dirty enough for you._

**~ * ~**

 

“I will always remember our last day in school before uni,” Louis says, mimicking the exact words Salt and Pepper said the day before.

Work is slow today. Perks of working on a Friday afternoon. Only two people came in and neither of them even stayed. They both just took their drinks and went straight out the door. So Harry decided to invite his friends since none of them has classes the next day.

“Ah yes,” Niall says. “The last day of school prank. Classic.”

“I’ll never forget the look on Coach Turner’s face when he saw that you dyed the swimming pool red, Lou,” Liam says, grinning at him. “I thought he was going to burst an artery.”

“Don’t forget about my finishing touches,” Harry says as he makes the chai latte Louis ordered.

“Ah yes,” Louis says, grabbing the tea Harry places on the bar. “That foam from the fire extinguisher looks exactly like whipped cream.”

“You should write about that,” Liam suggests, sipping on his coffee. 

“No,” Harry says, giving Niall his drink next and leaning on the table so he can look at the three of them properly. “That was all Louis, I was just an accomplice.”

“And besides,” Louis says, leaning back on his chair and putting both his feet on the table. “I remember him nearly passing out when the he was called to the dean’s office.”

“Is it always going to be like this?” Harry complains over their laughter. “And Louis, put your feet down!”

“We’re just saying, Haz,” Niall says as soon as he recovers from laughing. “You’re too much of a good bean to be in loads of trouble.”

“Yeah,” Liam says, “Why don’t you just write about the real stuff?”

“And bore everyone to death?” Louis pipes in, looking at Liam like he’s a lunatic who got out of the ward. “Are you serious, Leems?”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence, Lou,” Harry deadpans, he wonders why he stuck around with these guys for so long. “I feel really inspired to write now.”

“Or you could write about Aladdin?” Niall jokes, giving him a dirty look.

“No,” he replies, giving him a crazy look. “That’ll just make me look like a creep.”

“As if you’re not one already,” he says with a playful smile. Harry throws coffee beans at him in answer.

“Or you could write about your neighbor,” Liam says as he watches Niall and Harry throw stuff at each other. “What was his name again? The good looking one?”

“Zayn.” Harry supplies.

“You didn’t tell me about any good looking neighbor,” Louis says, sounding outraged. “When were you planning on telling me this?”

“Now?” He tells him about the things that happened the night he met Zayn and the things that happened the day after. He hasn’t had the opportunity to tell any of the guys about the making out thing, which earned Harry a couple of cheers from his friends.

“So are you trying to tell us you actually got some that night?” Niall says excitedly, patting Harry on the back. 

“Well, not exactly,” Harry says as he scratches the back of his head. “Cause after we made out he made me take my clothes off-” Niall whistles. Liam and Louis grin at him. “- and he started taking pictures of my naked body.” Harry finishes.

Instead of feeling outraged for their friend, as Harry expected them to, they patted his back in congrats and ruffled his hair.

“That’s what I’m talking about,” Niall says.

“I didn’t think you were the kinky type, Harry,” Liam says as he takes a drink from his cup. “Thought you were into the vanilla-sex thing type.”

“I’m not, what’s wrong - nevermind,” Harry stutters, holding a hand up to stop the boys from talking. “Thing is he’s a pain in the arse. He keeps on barging in and out of my dorm as if he owns the place. 

“Well, it’s really your fault, Haz,” Niall says.

“How is that my fault?” he replies, looking at Niall with a bewildered look in his face. “He blackmailed me.” _And I couldn’t think well, because I was still hungover from making out with him._

“You were spying on him, though,” Louis says.

“I wasn’t - you’re supposed to be on my side,” Harry says, offended. He knows they’re all kidding but can’t they give him a break?

“Keep your wig on, Styles,” Louis says, throwing a tissue at him. “Of course we’re on your side.”

“And you might not know, Harry,” Niall says, walking over to Harry and slinging an arm around him. “He might become your next boyfriend.”

He waggles his eyebrows at him, Harry only rolls his eyes at him in response. “Like that’s going to happen,” he mumbles, wiping the bar with a rag to make it look like he’s working.

“Why not?” Liam asks.

“Well, aside from him being an arse?” Harry asks, flabbergasted.

“Well you don’t know that yet, Harry,” he says. “I mean, you two didn’t really hit it off the first time.” A group of girls enter the cafe and stands by the counter, reviewing the menu. That’s Harry’s cue to go over to the counter and do his job.

“Trust me, Liam,” Harry says, “I don’t think he’s the type of guy I can talk to about important stuff.”  And with that, he heads over to the cash register and takes their order.

 

**~ * ~**

 

“You did what?” Aladdin says in between his laughs, clutching his tummy. It’s been roughly two weeks since Harry last saw him and they just finished a second round for this session. Harry was feeling really stressed over the events that happened in the last few weeks; the school work, projects, the bet, and everything else. He just had to call Aladdin.

Normal people would cuddle after an intimate round but given the situation, Aladdin and Harry’s form of ‘cuddling’ is staying in the chat for a few more minutes and lying down on their sides to talk. Pillow talk. He just finished telling Aladdin about the incident at the bar two weeks ago, and instead of receiving comfort he got the same thing he received from his best friends. Laughter.

He pouts at him, bottom lip jutting out and eyebrows scrunched. “I’m sorry, babe,” Aladdin says, trying to calm himself down. “I just - I just can’t imagine you slipping on a cube of ice and falling over the guy you were pining for.”

“My friends thought it was hilarious, too,” Harry says, adjusting the beanie so he could hide the curls near his ears. “I was hoping to get sympathy or something.”

“I’m trying to sympathize here,” Aladdin says, sitting down and adjusting his laptop so Harry can see his face, well half his jaw since today he has a gray wig on that’s covering more than half his face. “Why were you running after him anyway?”

“My friends were making fun of my love and sex life,” Harry says, explaining with his hands. He has his laptop balanced on his chest and he’s half lying, half sitting down on his bed. “So I made a bet with them.”

“What kind of bet?”

“Well, I need to find myself a boy or girlfriend, basically before the school year ends.” Harry says, adding that on his mental list of things he needs to do on top of all his projects and assignments. “Or else I’ll have to run around the school campus naked.” _This is going to be a crazy year._

“For what it’s worth, I hope you find someone soon, babe,” Aladdin says, lying down on the bed, probably balancing his laptop on his chest like Harry is. “If you don’t, you’ll always have me. You won’t have to chase me around, and so what if you have to streak? You have an amazing dick.”

“Thanks, Aladdin,” he says, feeling a bit better about the whole situation. Who needs a boyfriend when you could have a sort-of fuck buddy around to help you release stress?

“Always,” Aladdin says with a hazy smile. They stay like that for a few minutes more, looking sexed out and dazed. One of the many things Harry likes about Aladdin. He hears a _ping_! From Aladdin’s side. He sees him take his phone out and read something, a text probably.

“Oh shoot,” he says, typing something on his phone and sitting up straight. “I got to go. I need to write this report for class and it’s due in an hour.”

“You’re a student?” he asks.

“Yeah and like you, I have a project to turn in,” he says, opening a drawer and taking out it’s contents. “I need to go, Eric. I need to get this paper finished. Talk to you later?”

“Yeah sure,” Harry says, waving at him. “Good luck on that paper.”

“Good luck on that bet,” he says with a smile. “Try not to have too much fun without me.”

“I’ll try,” he replies with a smile and with that, the video call ends, leaving Harry alone again, blissed out and happier than he was before.

Aladdin’s right. So what if Harry can’t find a boyfriend? His mum always says that love will come around when you least expect it, will come from places you least expect to find it. So he tries not to worry about it too much.

Harry is just about to doze off, tired yet again after another sexcapade with Aladdin when he hears his door bang open. He rushes to cover his dick with the comforter and is about to tell his intruder off when he realizes that the intruder is Zayn.

He’s half naked, sweatpants hanging dangerously low on his hips. Harry never got the chance to study the ink littered all over Zayn’s arms before, on account that he walked in on him changing clothes. He sees the red lips inked on his chest, a bit similar to Aladdin’s. It was all too much. He guesses it’s life’s way of saying sorry for the shitty weeks he’s been having. _Apology accepted. We’re all good now, fam._

“Enjoying the view?” Zayn asks, hands on his hips and eyebrows raised. “Don’t you think you had enough to see before?”

Harry shakes his head and goes to pick up a shirt littered on his floor. “Would you stop doing that?” he says, reaching down to pick up his gray shirt and boxers while trying to cover his penis with the comforter.

“Do what?” he says, picking up Harry’s smiley face boxers and handing it over to him. He walks over to Harry’s desk and pulls a couple of drawers open.

“Bang my door open, you almost gave me a heart attack,” Harry says, placing his laptop on the table beside his bed and putting his boxers on. “What do you want anyway?”

“I need a pen,” Zayn says, still opening Harry’s drawers and taking out it’s contents. _Okay, talk about deja vu._

Once Harry’s half-dressed, he grabs his backpack and walks over to Zayn. “My pens are in here,” he says, pulling out a pink pen from his bag and presenting it to him. “Anything else?”

He takes the pen from Harry and puts it inside his pocket. Zayn then heads over to Harry’s mini fridge, picking up the box of oreos Louis left the other day. “Nope,” he says, opening the packet and biting on one of the cookies. “I’m good.” He turns his attention to Harry and slowly shakes his head, snickering under his breath.

“What are you snickering for?” Harry asks, copying Zayn’s stance earlier, hands on hips and one eyebrow raised.

“Sorry, I didn’t know you were busy with -” Zayn says with a laugh, pointing at Harry’s shirt.

Harry looks down at his shirt with both eyebrows still raised and sees precum smudged all over it. _Shit. Of all the dirty shirts he has on the floor, he had to pick the one that has dried cum on it. Fantastic._

“ _Shit_ ,” Harry says, rushing over to his dresser and picking out a clean white shirt to replaced the jizz stained one he was wearing. He can hear Zayn’s silent chuckles as he goes to remove his shirt.

“You know, I’d appreciate it if you’d like, hit me up with a text before you come barging in here,” Harry says as he puts the clean shirt on. “I mean, I know we had a deal and all but I need my privacy.” He turns around and Zayn’s still there, chewing on Louis’ Oreos. Harry needs to replace them before Louis looks for them.

He turns to his dresser again and picks out some sweatpants. “I know I haven’t been the best neighbor, seeing that I walked in on you naked and ignored you on your first day here but -” he rambles, putting on the sweatpants next. “But - I give you cookies and school supplies. The least you could do is warn me with a text before you come here. So is it okay if - 

He turns around fully dressed but to his dismay, Zayn’s gone, cookie crumbs taking his place. Harry releases a sigh of frustration as he shakes his head. “-if I get your number.” _Or at least let me know when you’re leaving._

 _Oh well_ , Harry thinks. _It is what it is_ . He goes to put the dirty shirt in the hamper when he sees a post it note on Harry’s fridge. On the note, he sees the words etched in pink ink. _‘524 452 6698 Zayn - hit me up so I could save your number. Sorry for cumming in like that. Aha lol’_

Harry smiles at the note. Zayn Malik may be a sneaky prick but he knows his puns. He grabs his phone from his desk and types. _‘You can’t just cum and go like that. - H‘_

 

**~ * ~**

 

It is probably the one hundredth piece of paper Harry throws away. _I should have worked on that sheet music instead of this shit,_ he thinks, resting his head on the desk and groaning as loudly as he can. Harry spent the whole afternoon during his free period trying to come up with something to write for his speech’s introduction for Salt and Pepper’s class but nothing came to him, only unartistic-looking doodles of random stuff at the margin of the numerous pages he wrote on.

He tries to recall the stuff his high school teachers taught him about writing essays and speeches and remembers three tips his english teacher gave him before: _Collect Material_ , _Record Data_ , _Start Early_. He writes the words on the piece of scratch paper.

He reads the title of the speech again, _I will never forget._ What are the things he will never forget? He racks his brain for things he knows he’s proud of doing. ‘ _Collect Material’ -_ just like what school taught him. He takes out another clean sheet of paper and racks his brains for the stuff he can say he’s proud of doing. _Volunteering,_ he writes beside the number one he wrote on the paper. _Registering for Red Cross, donating my hair to charity.._

He writes all those down. For the first time, Harry thinks, he knows how his paper for Salt and Pepper’s class will turn out. He adds more stuff to the list till he reaches the end of the paper. He gives the paper a smile, mentally patting himself on the back for a job well done. He’s just about to go and grab a drink from his mini fridge when -

“Looks like a boring list,” a sexy voice whispers into his ear.

“ _Shit_!” Harry exclaims, nearly falling off his seat and accidentally throwing the pen he was writing with outside the open window.  “Would you quit doing that?”

Zayn laughs as he goes towards the stash of biscuits Harry placed at the top of the fridge. He scans the selections and grabs the box of Oreos Harry bought for him. “But it’s amusing,” he says before taking a bite.  “That was the best reaction yet.”

“Well let’s hope I didn’t stab someone’s eye out with that pen,” he replies, peering outside the window to see if anyone is outside. The courtyard’s empty except for one guy laying on the grass, with a book propped open. He turns to face Zayn again and sees him going over the list Harry wrote.

“Hey that’s private,” Harry says, snatching the paper from Zayn and wiping it carefully. “And you might get crumbs on it.” He only shrugs at him as he takes a seat on Harry’s bed, whereas Harry takes a seat on the swivel chair.

Harry starts up his laptop so he can start typing his speech’s introduction. While waiting for the laptop to load, he reaches to steal an oreo from Zayn. The moment he takes a bite and begins to chew, he gags. “What the fuck is this shit?’ he says, disgusted. Spitting out the cookie and throwing the remainder in the bin he keeps underneath his desk.

“This shit,” he says, holding up the oreo to show Harry, “is delicious.” He takes another bite of the cookie, expression void of emotion.

“They’re too sweet and crunchy,” Harry says, turning back to the paper and grabbing a new pen so he can add _Songwriting_ to his list.

“Wow, I wonder what cookies should actually taste like?” he hears him reply sarcastically. “And if you hate it so much why do you keep buying them?”

 _Babysitting my godchild, help friends with their homeworks.. “_ I saw you finish the stash Louis keeps here,” he says mindlessly. “I thought that they’re, like, a favorite of yours or something.”

“They are.”

Harry hums and Zayn doesn’t say anything. Tranquility fills the room as Harry begins to type the draft for the speech he’ll be making by the end of the term. _I will never forget Junior year...._ He types the words out and also adds footnotes on the scratch paper he keeps so he can edit some of the sentences later on.

He doesn’t hear Zayn say goodbye this time, but it’s fine, Harry thinks. Harry writes until the afternoon sky turns dark, till the only source of light in his room is the lamp he keeps on the desk.

As soon as he’s done with the speech’s introduction, he releases a breath of triumph. He stands and stretches, trying to wake the muscles that had fallen asleep while he was working.

He turns to his bed and squawks at the sight of Zayn, hands free of oreos, looking expectantly at Harry. “You really need to stop doing that Zayn,” Harry says, with a hand over his heart. Zayn only stares at him, and he stares back awkwardly. “Um, what’s up?”

“You bought those shitty oreos for me?” he asks again, not looking away.  “Even though you don’t like them?”

Harry nods. _Okay, I didn’t think it would be this big of a deal._ “Yeah, is that okay?”

“Y-yeah,” he says, releasing a breath and laying down on Harry’s bed. “Sorry, it’s just - I’m not used to people being nice to me.”

“Oh.”

Another pregnant pause. “Sorry it’s just, it reminded me of my dad,” he explains, staring at the ceiling. “He used to always buy me Oreos whenever he got home from work.”

“Oh.” 47,156 words in the English dictionary and he goes with _‘oh.’_ Harry wants to smack himself in the face. He should say something impressive or maybe ask him a question. Anything. It’s his chance to actually get some vital information about him but his mouth remains shut.

“Anyway,” Zayn says, standing up and heading over to Harry’s desk. He sits in front of the laptop, pulls up the draft Harry wrote for his speech, and begins to read. The room’s filled with silence once again, and Harry thinks it’s one of the Zayn things he likes best. He watches him read his paper, watches his long eyelashes flutter with every blink, checks the tattoos of the lotus and the mandala, and notes the glassy look in his eyes. Zayn’s ridiculously beautiful, Harry thinks. But also ridiculously mysterious - in a good way, though.

“You can’t use the title of the speech as the introducing sentence of your whole speech” Zayn says, outraged after a while. “It’s so cliche.” He looks at Harry with both eyebrows raised. _Okay you may probably be the most beautiful man on the planet, but that was offensive._

“And what do you know about essays?” he replied defensively, snatching his laptop containing the speech he composed. “Are they one of your secret talents too?”

“As a matter of fact,” he says, turning to look at Harry smugly. “I happen to major in English. So yeah, I guess.”

_Oh._

“Being an English major doesn’t equal to being a genius on essays,” he argues. Zayn shrugs his shoulders at him and snatches Harry’s private journal from the bedside table, making Harry a bit anxious. He opens the journal, turns to an empty page and uncaps the pen he retrieved from the desk.

“I also won first place in an international essay writing contest.”

_Double Oh._

“You need to change this,” he says demandingly. “All of it. It’s boring as fuck. Impressive, yeah, but still boring as fuck.” he looks Harry dead in the eye.

Harry scoffs, thinking of other things he can write about for the speech. “I-I don’t know. That’s all I do that really matters, to be honest,” he says.

“Are you being serious?”

“Yes,” Harry says, unsure. “Are there more important things than that?”

“You’re so gullible,” Zayn says under his breath, shaking his head and writing something down in Harry’s journal. “Give them dirt, Haz.”

 _Haz?_  

“What kind of dirt? Want me to write some rebellious shit like the time I had sex in public or something?” he says sarcastically, shaking his head.

“Yes,” Zayn says sternly. Harry does a double take and looks at him incredulously. “Hear me out,” he says, changing his sitting position to stare at Harry. “I’ll make you choose between two plots.”

“Okay.”

“Would you rather choose to watch a documentary about a saint who dedicated his life serving -”

“I’m not a saint.”

“I wasn’t saying you are. That was just one of the choices,” he says. “Now will you let me continue?” Harry nods at him, releasing a breath of air. “Now, where was I? Oh! Would you rather watch a documentary about a saint who dedicated his life serving and impressing other people or would you rather watch The Hangover?”

“What kind of choice is that?” Harry says, trying to think of the countless documentaries he’s watched before.. They weren’t really about saints and martyrs and good people and all that but.. “The story about the saint like documentary doesn’t sound too bad.”

Zayn stares at him, expressionless. “If you’re trying to tell me that the thing  you will never forget is the time you volunteered to build a house for the homeless-”

“Hey, it was actually a nice feeling to help those people out!” Zayn stares at him again. The kind of stare that gets you to say anything he’d want you to say. “Okay fine, the hangover.”

“I thought so too,” he says, clapping his hands together. “So, piece of advice, that bit about you having sex in public? Put that in the paper. Tell us about -” he stops at the account of Harry’s blank facial expression. “Wait, you’ve never?” He shakes his head.

“Do you do anything dirty besides wash the animal shit in the shelter, Dimples?”

_Dimples._

“Umm,” he says, trying to think. He thinks of Aladdin but decides against it. “Umm, I watch porn.”

“And I like to breathe air.” Harry gives him a look. “What? I thought we were stating the obvious here.”

“Well I don’t know what to write about,” he says as he dramatically falls on his bed, clinging onto one of his pillows. “So I guess it’s back to Plan A.”

“No,” Zayn says, listing something down on Harry’s journal. “I’ve got a proposition.” He looks at Harry with a mischievous glint in his eye. “As payment for the countless oreos you’ve fed me, I’m prepared to go out on reckless adventures with you.”

“Go out on what?”

“Imagine this like the hangover movie,” he starts to explain, standing and taking a seat at the end of the bed and adjusting Harry’s legs over his lap, making Harry’s heart skip. “Only instead of us waking up with the worst hangover of our lives, trying to piece together what happened the night before, we do it in reverse.”

“We look for a missing person then wake up with a hangover?”

“No. We find clues, we collect information,” he says, encircling the note at the side of the paper containing the pieces of advice his high school English teacher gave him. “See, even you agree.” He points at the message.

Harry can do nothing but sigh in frustration, letting Zayn convince him. It’s not like Zayn would actually do something crazy. Right?

He nods to confirm his agreement.

“Great,” he says, clapping his hands together and grabbing a pink pen from his pocket, the same one Harry lent him ages ago. “So, number one: _Sex in Public_.” He writes in the journal.

“No,” Harry says, rushing to sit beside him to take a peek at what Zayn’s writing.

Zayn crosses out the _sex in public_ and continues to write more stuff like _Cutting Class, Apartment 101, Line of Coke, The Underground._

Harry goes through the list mentally. He weighs the pros and cons of the plan. Cons: Possible Arrest, Injury etc.. Pros: Zayn, possibly write something okay-ish, ZAYN. He looks at him as he notes more things he and Harry could do. _What’s the worst thing that could happen?_

“Fine, I’ll do it,” he announces, making Zayn grin at him. “But I’m not going to try a line of coke and pay for sex,” he says, grabbing the pen from Zayn’s hand and crossing those options out from the list.

_I already pay for sex, why add it in the list._

After some time they’re done deciding what to put on their list, Harry exerting his best efforts in convincing Zayn to remove the stuff that could get both of them arrested, or even worse, expelled.

Zayn stands up and throws on the leather jacket Harry has hanging on the chair. “Let’s go.”

“Where are we going?” Harry asks, looking at him incredulously but standing up and putting on a sweater nonetheless.

Zayn replies by ripping the list they wrote out of Harry’s journal and tucking it in his inside pocket. He heads to the exit, leaving the door open, indicating that Harry should follow suit. Harry heaves a sigh and follows him.

 

**~ * ~**

 

Zayn takes him to a diner that - _according to him_ \- makes the best omelets in the world. Harry learns, judging from the fact that the employees who work there greet him hello as they enter, that Zayn’s a regular customer there. He waves hello at them back and high-fives a young girl, who’s apparently the daughter of one of the waitresses, as Zayn leads them to an empty booth.

Once their bellies are full of breakfast food, Zayn takes him to a private neighborhood consisting of suburban homes with big lawns that have actual fences separating the houses. Harry didn’t think that there was a neighborhood like this in London. They walk in silence. He is about to ask Zayn what they are up to next when sees him staring at the night sky with a dreamy look in his eyes.

“Hey,” Harry says, disturbing him from his reverie. Zayn looks at him, the dreamy look in his eyes gone. “What’s on your mind?”

He smirks at him. Harry’s half convinced that he imagined the look Zayn had a few seconds ago. “I was thinking about the list,” he says.

“What about it?”

“Well,” Zayn says as he grabs Harry’s hand. “I was thinking we should work on it now.”

And before Harry can utter a word, Zayn pulls Harry with him towards a house with green walls and a white fence. He leads him to a gate at the side of the house and begins to reach to the other side of the door to unlock it.

“What’re you doing?” Harry says with wide eyes, trying to remove the hand Zayn has on his arm. “Breaking and entering isn’t part of the list.”

“I know,” Zayn says, concentrating on the lock he is trying to pick, his tongue sticking out and forehead wrinkling.

“Well, what’s this then?” Harry says, backpedaling. Thinking of the crumpled paper - that used to be the original draft he wrote for the class - back in his dorm room. _I don’t really need a good grade for this class, a grade that’ll pass the class will do._

Harry hears the padlock fall to the ground. It looks like Zayn was successful in picking the lock. Harry would think it was cool if it isn’t for the fact that what he did is illegal. Zayn looks at Harry mischievously, pushing the gate open and going inside. “The list,” he says from the other side of the gate.

“Zayn-” before Harry can finish what he’s saying, Zayn rushes inside and turns a corner, leaving Harry open-mouthed and staring at the corner he disappeared from. “Oh shit, oh shit. 

He paces back and forth, thinking of either leaving Zayn behind - or at least hiding behind the oak tree and waiting for Zayn - or going after him.

Since he’s a pro-con person he weighs the consequences of each action. _Okay so, con: Getting caught and possibly spend the night in jail. Pro: The possibility of actually getting something out of this and actually writing a bomb-ass speech. Con: Expulsion. Pro: Zayn._

After a few minutes of thinking and pacing in circles, he decides to go hide behind the oak tree instead. He’ll just have to say sorry to Zayn later and make it up to him with Oreos. He turns to take a seat by the tree when he hears Zayn cry for help.

“HARRY HELP!” Zayn screams, sounding terrified. “HELP ME!” He hears a crashing sound and more of Zayn’s pleas for help. _I knew this was a bad idea. Don’t think I won’t say I told you so._ He looks at the oak tree on one side and the opened gate on the other. _This better be fucking worth it._ Harry sprints inside, forgetting about the hiding plan. Rushing towards the source of Zayn’s voice.

By the time he turns the corner, the first thing Harry sees is a big pool, probably five or six feet deep. Surrounding it are rose bushes and two lounge chairs, one of which Zayn is currently occupying. Hands behind his head, apparently not in trouble.

“Wha-What the fuck?!” he pants, hands on knees. He looks around the property and notices the umbrella that’s knocked down - must be the source of the crash.  
“I thought you’d never come,” Zayn says in a bored tone, looking at Harry from the lounge chair he is lying on.

“Well now that you got me where you want me, what now?” Harry says irritably, still catching his breath. He goes to pick up the umbrella Zayn knocked down. There is no way the owners of the house will know they were there. Harry won’t allow it.

Once Harry has gotten rid of all the evidence, he looks at Zayn to find out he was watching him while he was cleaning up.

“You’re nervous,” he states, still in the same position Harry found him earlier.

“That tends to happen when it’s your first time breaking and entering,” Harry replies, gesturing to the house and pool. “What did you want to do here in the first place, anyway?”

“Oh yeah, I almost forgot,” he says, standing up and starting to take his shirt off. Harry watches him with a wild look on his face. Is he going to do what Harry thinks he’s going to do? Zayn strips his pants off last, leaving him in just his underwear. He looks at Harry and scoffs. “Are you just going to stand there and watch?”

“Are you going to do what I think you’re going to do?” he asks. Zayn answers by smirking at him and jumping into the pool, the splash he created making Harry wet.

“Come on in,” Zayn says as soon as he pops out of the water, floating in the middle.

“Zayn, I don’t think this is a good idea.”

“The best things come out of crazy ideas.” he says, doing some backstrokes. “C’mon, Harry! Join me,”

“This is more than crazy, Zayn. This is illegal!” he says exasperatedly. Still rooted in place. Harry could go with crazy, just not illegal.

“Well, all this breaking and entering would have been for nothing,” he says. Harry watches him swim around in the pool, thinking of what he can use as an excuse to back out of their agreement before things escalate or before they could be apprehended.

“I know what you’re thinking, Harry Styles.” Zayn says, disturbing his train of thoughts.

“Good, then you must know that I want out of-” he says and gestures to the both of them “-this.”

“Let me guess,” Zayn says, swimming over to the edge of the pool and looking up at him. “You’re afraid of being arrested. You think that this is a bad idea and that you’ll get nothing out of this. And that while you were over there looking at me swim, you were thinking of a shit excuse to leave. Am I right?” _Okay, he’s good._ Harry nods at him.

“Before the rational part of your brain takes over the rest of your senses,” he continues, pushing himself out of the pool to face Harry, dripping wet from head to toe, “In five or maybe even ten years from now, I want you to think of this moment, yeah? Imagine walking out of this opportunity, saying no to some random neighbor’s crazy idea, and just - just telling yourself ‘shit I should have jumped in the pool.’” Zayn looks at him meaningfully, trying to send a message with his honey coloured eyes.

Harry stares at him, trying to feel something, trying to get the message his eyes are trying to portray but all his mind can think of is:   _I guess I could live with it._

“And don’t guess that you’ll live with it.”

“Are you a telepath?” Harry asks, twice as confused as he was a minute ago. “Are you reading my mind?”

Zayn shrugs at him. “Maybe,” he says, taking a few steps forward, getting into Harry’s space and making him gulp. _Okay, what the hell does Zayn have in store for him now?_ Zayn’s face is an inch apart from Harry’s. He licks his lips and Harry can do nothing but stare at his tongue running over his upper lip. “But one thing’s for certain,” he says.

“W-what’s that?” he stutters.

“You sure can’t read my mind.”

“What-” and before Harry finishes what he was saying, Zayn hugs him tightly and pulls them down into the pool.

They create a big splash, big enough to dampen the once-dry lounge chairs and the pool side. So much for not leaving any evidence, Harry thinks as he submerges down  the pool, already trying to think of an excuse if the police catches them.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Harry yells to a laughing Zayn once they’ve ascended from the water.

“I was helping you not regret things.”

“Gee, thanks,” he says sarcastically, taking his shirt and pants off and throwing it to the pool side. “This feels really rebellious and shit.”

“Damn right it does,” Zayn says, swimming over to Harry and splashing water over to him. Harry splashes water back and they do that for the rest of their time in the pool. Harry starts to control the voice in his head, starts to actually loosen up. They swim laps in the pool, they sink, and they float for an hour at the most.

They hear the sound of the house’s garage door opening. The creaking sound making Harry’s heart stop. _Oh my god. Please don’t be the owner. Please._

“Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit,” Harry mutters underneath his breath, quickly swimming over to the edge of the pool to push himself out and get his clothes. He ignores the voice in his head screaming _I told you so_. “Shit, the owner’s here.”

Zayn - instead of freaking out like Harry is - is still in the pool, looking over to the house. A light opens and Harry ducks, to prevent the owner from seeing him. “Zayn please, let’s go.”

“That guy looks familiar,” Zayn says, slowly swimming to the edge. If he was within arm’s reach, Harry would’ve pulled him out. “Don’t you think he looks familiar?”

“I don’t give a shit, Zayn. Just hurry up,” he says, rushing to retrieve the clothes he left at the seat lounge. Harry can see a shadow, noticing movement from the inside of the house. “Please, Zayn.”

“Is that?” Zayn says once he’s fully out of the pool, pointing at the lit room. Harry turns his head to look and - _fuck_. If he thought things couldn’t get any worse, the night just continues to prove him wrong.

“Salt and Pepper,” Harry says from under his breath. “We need to go!” Okay, what are the odds of him breaking and entering in his professor’s house, the same professor who’s the reason why Harry’s there in the first place?

“Fuck,” Zayn says with a grin, collecting the clothes Harry retrieved for him. They rush while ducking down to avoid being spotted, and they’re almost at the gate located at the side of the house when the pool lights turn on and Salt and Pepper comes through the back door with an umbrella at hand.

“I saw you,” he says, waving the umbrella threateningly. ”Montgomery, I know it’s you again!” Zayn and Harry run for their lives, pushing the door open with a loud bang and running to the sidewalk, out of harm’s way.

 

**~ * ~**

 

"You did what?" Louis exclaims after his very detailed story about the night he had with Zayn.  Harry can’t get that adventure off his mind; his heart palpitates every time he sees his professor in class.

Friday has arrived and he’s at the dorm with his friends, choosing to spend the night in to do a little school work and catch up with one another since they don’t have that many classes together.

"Well I believe he said-" Liam starts.

"Shut up, Liam," Louis says, cutting him off. "I know what he said, I just- I can't believe you did that." Harry was hoping his friends would help him ease his mind but all he’s gotten is the exact opposite. Louis’ lecturing him, Liam is looking at Harry in a really concerned way while Niall’s laughing under his breath and shaking his head.

"Sounds like that Zayn is a crazy guy," Niall says, grabbing a cookie from the stash Harry keeps in his room. _Oh you have no idea._ "You should ask him to hang out sometime."

"I don't think I want to hang out with Zayn Malik just yet," Louis says skeptically, pronouncing Zayn’s name with malice.

“Are you forgetting that you conducted that prank back in high school?” Niall asks, throwing a cookie at him.

“It wasn’t illegal though,” Louis says, throwing the crumbs back to Niall. “It broke the school rules but not any government laws.”

“Well, he can be a handful,” Harry says. “A bit crazy yeah, but he’s actually nice.”.

“Are you kidding me, Harry?” Louis says. “The guy is mental. I mean, you two broke into Simons’ house for god’s sake. You could have been arrested.”

“I bet you did it because he was hot, eh?” Niall says in an amused voice, smiling at Harry.

He rolls his eyes at him. “He _is_ good looking but his looks had nothing to do with all this,” Harry says. ”Plus, we weren’t arrested, Louis. So just give it a rest,” Harry says, standing to grab a drink from the mini fridge he has in his room.

Louis already has his mouth open to voice out a retort when the door slams open. A slightly-surprised Zayn is at the door, dressed in ripped skinny jeans and a white shirt inside a leather jacket. _He looks like a million bucks, god._

He takes a look at the rest of the lads and like him, Niall and Liam have their mouths wide open, whereas Louis is  pretending to take down notes. _I told you he was good looking._

“Hey," Zayn says, waving at them awkwardly. "I didn't know you had company."

Harry snaps out of it and goes to fully open the door to let him in. “No it’s okay. We were just catching up on some school stuff,” he says as he closes the door behind Zayn.

“Oh, okay.”

"These are my friends by the way," he says, gesturing towards Liam, Niall and Louis. "The guy with the puppy dog eyes is Liam.” Harry says pointing to Liam. “The guy with blond ends is called Niall.” He points at Niall next and Niall only winks at Zayn as a greeting. “And that sharp-faced boy’s name is Louis.”

Zayn goes to shake to each of their hands, except for Louis, who is pretending to be busy with his hands. Harry will have to talk to him later.

"What brings you here?" Liam asks politely, making room in the little circle they formed so Zayn can take a seat next to him and Niall.

“I was just about to ask the guy with dimples and curly hair to go to a concert.”

“I see what you did there,” Liam says, chuckling at him.

“What concert?” Harry asks, taking a seat on the bed.

“My friend’s playing at this underground party thing,” Zayn explains, taking out his phone to show the invitation in his text messages. “She invited me to watch and I figured we could work on the list.”

“What list?” Niall asks, butting in on their conversation. “And what underground party?”

“Niall, shut up,” Harry says, crossing the room to get to his dresser so he can change his shirt.

"Is it illegal?" Louis asks. Harry kicks him in the back, and Louis slaps him on the leg in return.

“It’s legal. Sort of,” Zayn tells him, grabbing an oreo from the stash. “I mean, it’s held at an abandoned subway downtown. I reckon someone owns the place but a lot of those underground events were conducted there and no one’s been called out on it or arrested, so I guess it’s okay.”

“That sounds cool,” Liam says. “I’ve never been to an underground party before.”

“Me either,” Niall says.

“You’re free to come and join us if you like,” Zayn says, making Liam and Niall smile brightly at him.

“Really?” Liam says, standing up and dusting off cookie crumbs from his clothes. “Your friend won’t mind?”

“The more the merrier. That’s what she always says.”

“Sounds like a cool gal, can’t wait to meet her,” Liam says, heading out the door with Zayn and Niall beside him, leaving Harry and Louis at the dorm.

“Are you coming or what?” Harry says, hands on his hips and staring down at Louis. Louis only rolls his eyes at Harry but eventually goes to stand and follow the rest of their friends.

**~ * ~**

The old abandoned subway Zayn was talking about is a couple of blocks away from _Cathy’s,_ the cafe Harry works at. The party is nothing compared to the parties he and the rest of the lads have been to. A band’s playing a metal version of _The Weeknd’s Starboy_ , there are small stands at the party that sell alcohol at the sidelines, and the air reeks of smoke. Everything’s wild. Harry guesses that based on the looks of his friends’ faces, that they haven’t been to this kind of event either.

All four of them are gaping at the atmosphere around them. Zayn leads them through the crowd of dancing drunk people towards a table where two girls are sitting at.

“Zayn!” the girl with the brown hair says as she goes to hug Zayn hello. “You made it.”

“Told you I wouldn’t miss it,” Zayn says.

“Who are you your friends?” the other girl asks, looking intently at Liam.

“Oh yeah,” Zayn says, “Girls, this is Harry, Niall, Liam and Louis.” He gestures to each of them during the introduction. “Guys, this is Eleanor and Sophia.”

“Nice to meet you,” Liam says, shaking each of their hands, looking at Sophia differently than he does when he sees other girls.

“Are you in a girl band?” Niall asks, taking a seat on one of the empty chairs.

“No,” Eleanor says with a laugh. “I’m Deejaying in a bit. Hope you’re staying.”

“You’re a DJ?” Louis asks, taking the seat next to her and looking at her with wide eyes. 

“Got a problem with that?” Eleanor asks, head held up high. 

“No, no,” Louis says, shaking his head, looking at her with awe in his eyes. “I just, I haven’t met a female DJ before.” They continue to talk about the music she makes while Niall makes some new friends with people from the other table. Liam is having a conversation with Sophia, leaving Zayn and Harry together. Zayn’s texting someone on his phone; it’s been going on and off for a few times already.

“Come with me,” Zayn says after he sends his texts, standing up. Harry follows suit and Zayn takes him to one of the stalls that sells cheap drinks. He orders two whole bottles of whiskey and some soda. _Looks like this night is going to bite me in the ass._

Once they’re back at the table, he gives the other bottle of whiskey to the others to share while he holds up the tequila, Harry’s guessing, he and Zayn will solely share.

“If we’re going to do a hangover remake,” Zayn starts to say, shouting over the loud music playing, “We better drink lots of this.” he pours Harry a generous amount of whiskey mixed with a touch of coke.

He takes the alcohol Zayn offers him and raises his glass. “To English class,” Zayn says.

“To English class,” Harry repeats, clinking his glass with Zayn’s.

 

**~ * ~**

 

It boggles Harry's mind how Zayn knows a lot of places that Harry doesn’t know exist. And he's lived here shorter compared to Harry.  

As Zayn promised, he takes Harry to different places all around town and makes him do things Harry never dreamed of doing before. Unlike the first time, they don’t do any more illegal stuff - like breaking into Salt and Pepper's house.  

Most of the things Zayn makes him do are tame. Like shopping at a black market that sells cheap yet good quality booze, eating exotic food from Asia at a food festival Zayn heard about online, mini golfing after spending the whole afternoon drinking scotch straight from the bottle - Harry puked during the game - and skinny dipping in a public lake one time while on the way home from the bar.

Harry decides that Zayn Malik is an adventurer. He stores it inside his mental list of _‘Things about Neighbor with the sexy voice,’_ but because of all the crazy shit he and Zayn have been up to, Harry feels more experienced than he was before when he goes to bed at night.

That night, Harry and Zayn are at the same diner they stayed at on the same night they broke into Salt and Pepper’s house.

While waiting for their food to arrive, Zayn’s drawing on the piece of paper the diner uses as the plate mats while Harry stares at him. He realizes that they've been spending a huge amount of time together and yet Zayn's the only one learning stuff about Harry.

The only thing Harry knows about Zayn aside from the fact that he is insanely adventurous is that he loves oreos because his dad used to bring him home a box of them when he got back from work.

"Are you going to stare at me all day or what?" Zayn asks, not looking up from his drawing. Harry clears his throat and begins to study his coffee.

"Sorry," Harry replies, stirring his drink. “Was just thinking.”

"Are you going to tell me what you're thinking about?" he asks. "I can hear you think from here.”

_You._

"Um,” Harry says, taking a sip of his coffee. “Nothing much.”

Zayn hums, shading his drawing of a city that looks sort of like New York, since the building in the drawing looks like the Empire State Building. "You were wondering why you only know little about me."

 _He can also read minds_ , Harry adds to his mental list.

“No I wasn’t,” Harry says defensively. “I was just thinking about my, uhm, speech.”

Zayn gives him a bored look, setting the picture he drew aside and continuing to stare at Harry. Waiting. Giving Harry the ‘ _Don’t bullshit with me, I know what you’re thinking’_ look.

“What?” Harry asks, face turning red. He goes to pick up his own pencil and paper and begins to mindlessly doodle.

“Are you forgetting that I can read your mind?” he deadpans, giving Harry his best ‘just fucking say it’ look.

“No, I didn’t,” Harry replies as he makes a couple of squiggly colorful lines with the crayons he was given by the waitress earlier. Zayn hums and goes back to his drawing, which is better looking than Harry’s. _Can draw really well,_ he adds to his list.

They stay like that for a few minutes - silent, except for the parts where Zayn’s phone rings, but minus that, they stay in their usual comfortable silence.

“So I was thinking,” Zayn says after a while, setting his finished drawing down and looking at Harry. “I think we need to cross out ‘getting tattoos’ off of our list.”

“I don’t really get why that needs to be on the list when I have an arm full of tattoos,” he says, looking back at him.

“That’s the thing,” Zayn says, grabbing the paper Harry drew and scribbled on and reviewing it. “You have an _arm_ full of tattoos.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning you should get one on your ass or something,” Zayn says, setting Harry’s drawing down with a roll of his eyes. “Everyone knows getting arm tattoos are painless.”

“Says the guy with a hundred different tattoos on both arms,” Harry retorts.

“Among other places,” he says with a sly smile.

Harry scoffs, choosing to ignore Zayn by looking at the sparrows and moth he drew at the back of his paper placemat. _Okay, I was wrong. Zayn doesn’t draw really well, he draws amazingly._ He traces the moth’s wings with his fingers, appreciating its intricate details.

“Do you like it?” Zayn asks, watching Harry trace his fingers over the drawing of the sparrows next.

“Yeah,” Harry mumbles, looking at Zayn with a smile. “It’s really good.”

“Good,” he says with a grin so big, it makes Harry nervous. What usually follows after that mischievous grin is something really really stupid like-

“Cause that’s going to be your first chest tattoo.”

The smile Harry had on his face completely disappears. _I fucking knew he was going to say something stupid._ “Come again?” he asks. Harry heard him, it’s just his way of trying to wrap his head around the idea. He recalls the promise he made his mum where the only place his tattoos will be are on his left arm.

“You heard me,” he says, crossing his arms like a little kid. Harry thinks it's unfair that he can look both handsome and cute. Annoying as fuck, yeah. But adorable nonetheless.

“And what if I say no?” Harry says, challenging him by also crossing his arms.

“I will drag your body across this diner and across the street till we make it to the tattoo parlor,” he says, his tone bored, but Harry has a feeling that he means every word.

“Oh yeah?” he still says despite his fear of Zayn’s capabilities.

“Don’t think I won’t,” Zayn says with the same tone as earlier. They go into an impromptu staring contest, neither daring to break eye contact. As Harry stares into Zayn’s eyes, he realizes that they’re somewhat similar to Aladdin’s. Almost everything about Zayn reminds him of Aladdin, it drives Harry crazy. From his chin to this cheekbones and the tattoos. They look so much alike. It isn’t exactly helping him win this contest.

His eyes linger from Zayn’s eyes to his pink lips. He wonders if they’re as soft as they look. _What the heck, Styles? First comparing him to Aladdin, then admiring his lips. What’s next?_ Harry shakes his head and focuses again on his and Zayn’s staring contest, concentrating really hard so he doesn’t do something he doesn’t want to do.

But the task becomes hard as soon as Zayn licks his upper lip, making Harry look away due to the sudden twitch of his dick.

“This isn’t over,” Harry says as Zayn chuckles, still looking away to hide the embarrassed look on his face. “You’re still not convincing me to get that bird tattoo.”

“Watch me.”

 

**~ * ~**

 

Harry’s chest still stings due to the hundreds of needles the tattoo artist used for his swallow tattoos. He tries not to look impressed as he checks his new tattoo in the mirror, not wanting to give Zayn the satisfaction of knowing he was right. 

 _I can’t wait to show the lads_ , he thinks as he and Zayn head out the tattoo parlor.

“I can read your mind, you know,” Zayn says, smiling at him. They’re walking back to the dorms together, the streets empty and silent for a change. “You can quit trying to hide that stupid grin and just say that I’m right.”

“And give you the chance to tell me I told you so?” he retorts, trying to keep his expression neutral. “No thanks.”

“But they look sick though,” Zayn compliments, looking sideways at Harry’s chest.

“Yeah,” Harry says with a small smile creeping. “It does.”

Zayn only chuckles at him as he shakes his head. They continue to walk, Harry running his hands over his stinging chest and Zayn staring up at the sky It’s sort of a thing that he likes to do whenever they go home after their escapades.

“You know,” Harry says, disturbing the silence, trying to recover a couple of astronomy lessons. “Every star you see in the night sky is bigger than the sun.”

Zayn looks at him, an eye crinkling smile present on his face. Harry needs to control himself from taking his phone out to take his picture. It’s not everyday you see tough and brave Zayn Malik wearing an innocent, sweet smile on his face.

“Yeah?” he asks, the smile still plastered on his face. “I didn’t actually. How did you know about that?”

“School,” Harry says nonchalantly, hands in his pockets. “I was keeping it stored inside my brain so I could share it with you.”

“Did you know,” he replies, “Pirates consider swallows as a sign of hope.”

“You’re just saying that so I won’t feel bad about my new tattoos,” Harry replies with a small smile. They turn a corner and their building comes into view. Harry wishes they didn’t take the shortcut so they could have more time together.

“No really,” he says with an outraged look on his face. “Swallows never travel far out sea. Their sighting meant that land was near and the long voyage was coming to an end.”

“Is that why you made me get two swallows?” he asks with an eyebrow raised. “So I could be twice as hopeful?”

“Nope,” Zayn says with a smirk. “Two swallows means going on a very long journey.”

“Are you trying to say that this is just the beginning of all that shit you made me do?” Harry asks incredulously.

“Maybe,” Zayn says with a shrug. “Or maybe it’s just the start of a beautiful friendship.” He gives Harry a small smile, nothing about the smile feels fake. Harry rolls his eyes in response to conceal the blush he has on his cheeks.

They enter the building together and go up the stairs. That quote gets Harry thinking of everything he and Zayn have been through. After all the stupid shit Zayn made him do, Harry’s thankful that he met him.

If someone told Harry a few months ago that he was going to break into his least favorite professor’s house and get two new bird tattoos on his chest, he would have laughed. The old Harry would have thought that he’s going through a rebellious phase but really, he was just living his life more extravagantly than before.

“So,” Zayn says, disturbing Harry’s train of thoughts. “I was thinking.”

“That sounds out of character,” Harry jokes, earning him a punch in the arm from the other boy. He tries to ignore the tingles from where Zayn’s hand touched. _Well, that’s new._

“As I was saying,” he says. They stop in front of their dorms, facing each other. “I was thinking.”

“About?”

“About this,” he says, fidgeting a bit. “I know I can come across as bossy sometimes.”

“Sometimes?” Harry repeats, feigning to look outraged at an annoyed looking Zayn. He punches Harry again to shut him up. Harry laughs in return.

“Are you going to let me finish or am I going to have to shut you up myself?” he says, frustrated. Harry mimes zipping his lips shut and throwing away the key, making the frustrated wrinkles on Zayn’s forehead  disappear.

“As I was saying after your rude interruptions,” he says, leaning back against the wall, hands behind his back. “I know that I can come across as bossy and pushy, and I know you’re against half the things we do. So I just wanted to apologize for making you do things you didn’t want to.”

“No, it’s fine. I-”

“Shut up,” he says, kicking in Harry’s direction. “I still remember the face you made when you entered that house we broke into.” He doesn’t retort to that. Harry has to admit, he still has difficulty with looking Salt and Pepper directly in the eye.

“So I thought that you might like to choose what we’ll do next time,” he says. Harry doesn’t know if he imagined it, but for a second there, it sounded like Zayn was shy.

“You mean like, I get to pick what we do on our next night out?” he asks excitedly, grinning from ear to ear. “Yeah,” Harry says, clearing his throat. “I mean, yeah. That’d be nice. When?”

“I’ll text you,” Zayn replies as he takes his keys out. He checks his phone to read the countless text messages he has waiting to be replied to and immediately sticks his keys into his keyhole.

“Alright,” Harry says, also taking his keys out so he can open his own door. “I can’t wait.”

 

**~ * ~**

Aladdin comes with a loud, earth-shattering groan. Harry comes after him, sputtering cum all over the shirt he has on. Harry has a free day today due to his classes being canceled by his professors and Zayn being busy with work.

Harry decided that a session with Aladdin was due since he hasn’t seen him in weeks. He lays on his bed, panting, trying to catch his breath. God, he missed this.

“That was -” Aladdin starts to say.

“Amazing? Incredible?” Harry supplies for him, adjusting the hoodie and glasses he has on that are covering half his face.

“New,” he finishes. Today he has his hair tied up in a knot and his face is covered with a masquerade mask that sort of reminds Harry of that movie about that rich guy and his sub-wife.

“What have you been up to?” Aladdin asks, adjusting his camera so it can focus on his masked face. “The roleplay thing? Amazing. What has gotten into you?”

“Nothing much,” Harry replies, using his stage voice. “I’ve just been going out more often than usual.” Aladdin hums, both of them trying to recover from their frenzied haze. This is one downside of spending most of his free time with Zayn - he doesn’t get to wank as much as he’d like to. Though, the pros of being with him make up for it.

Harry still hasn’t decided on where to take Zayn. Niall suggested to take him out on a crazy adventure, _‘Get him a taste of his own medicine,’_ he said as he showed Harry an ad for a newly opened theme park. Harry declined (he’s afraid of roller coasters). Liam said to go with the classic Netflix and Chill. _‘Who knows what’ll happen next?’_ he said with a wink. Harry smacked him on the head as response. Louis, on the other hand, sarcastically suggested to take Zayn home to his mum so they could plan their wedding.

He must have zoned out for a while because Aladdin’s snapping his fingers at him to get his attention. “Eric?” he asks, “You there?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Harry replies, clearing his throat. “Sorry, I was just thinking.”

“About who?” Aladdin says with a knowing smile.

“I didn’t say I was thinking of someone.”

“Oh yeah?” he says, eyebrows going up. “Well, your goo-goo eyes and stupid smile say otherwise.” Harry didn’t even notice that a smile was creeping up on his face when he was thinking of his mum’s reaction when she meets Zayn.

“So?” Aladdin asks in demanding tone. “Are you going to tell me or what?” Harry chuckles at him, remembering Zayn and how similar he and Aladdin act.

“I’m sort of hanging out with this guy,” Harry starts. Aladdin gives him a shit-eating grin and sits up so he can focus on Harry’s story. “I’ve been trying new things because of him, hence the role play earlier.” He ignores Aladdin’s _‘I can’t believe you used the word ‘hence’ in an actual live conversation.’_

“Anyway,” Harry says, shifting on his bed. “I’m taking him out and well, it’s sort of my turn to call the shots.”

“Where are you planning on taking him?”

“I don’t know,” Harry says with a shrug. “A couple friends of mine suggested a couple places and stuff but I don’t know.”

“Well what do you want to do?” Aladdin asks. “Do _you_ have something in mind?”

“Well I was planning on -” Harry stops, shaking his head, thinking it’s already a terrible idea. “Nevermind. My ideas are boring. I might just take him to this theme park my friend told me about.”

“Then it wouldn’t be special,” Aladdin says. “You should show him the real you, babe. Take him to a fire extinguisher convention if that’s what you want. If he sticks around after, he’s a keeper.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Harry says, yawning and stretching his arms. “Thanks Aladdin.”

“Anytime,” he says as he grabs his phone and types in a text. “And because of that, I’m asking someone out.”

“Are you jealous, Aladdin?” he asks playfully despite his drowsiness taking over half his senses. Harry is always useless post-sex.

“No,” he says as he sends his text and puts his phone down. “Just happy for you is all. I’m actually in the same place as you, to be honest. I’ve also been seeing someone and well, I don’t know. I think I like him.” 

“Well, I’m glad to hear that we’re both going out on dates.” He yawns for the second time, “I hope he doesn’t take you to a fire extinguisher convention.”

He hears him say, “I’d stick around even after that,” before his eyelids shut and he falls asleep.

 

**~ * ~**

"Are you serious?" Zayn asks, staring at the karaoke bar with raised eyebrows. "I let you take me to do one of your things and you take me out to sing karaoke?"

"Heyyyy," Harry whines with a pout. "Karaoke is really relaxing."

Harry decided to take Aladdin’s advice. He’s sort of regretting it a bit but he’s going to push through with it, regardless of the indignant look on Zayn’s face. He took Zayn to a karaoke bar that he and the lads used to go to after a long night of drinking booze.

They’re seated at the bar with a glass of scotch each, watching a girl Harry has one of his classes with currently singing an _Adele_ song on the stage. While she sings her version of _When We Were Young,_ the host of the show goes around the bar, waving the clipboard with the names of the people who want to sing.

Harry signals her so can put in his entry, he sees Zayn roll his eyes at him as he writes on the registration paper.

"You know," Zayn says the moment the host walks off with Harry’s form. "My dad's a great singer. I used to listen to him sing all the time."

“Yeah?” Harry asks, glad that Zayn’s willingly providing him information about himself.

“Yeah,” Zayn says, not taking his eyes off the stage. “He taught me and my sisters how to sing when were younger.”  

“Well, you must be a great singer then?" Harry asks, trying to sound nonchalant as he takes a sip of his drink.

"Well, I guess I'm not bad," Zayn says with a shrug, watching the girl singing _Adele_ get off the stage. “I mean, I won first place in a singing contest when I was ten, but that was a long time ago.”

“But do you still sing though?” Harry asks,

“I do in the showers if that counts?” Zayn says, sounding unsure. He turns to look at Harry to shoot him a skeptical look. Harry tries to keep the threatening laugh inside of him.

“Well that’s a relief,” Harry says, releasing a breath and leaning on the bar.

“Why is that?” Zayn asks with full of suspicion, “Why do I get the feeling that something not good is going to happen? 

“That’s good,” Harry says. “Now you know how I feel when you make me do things I don’t want to do.”

He was about to say something back, probably figuring out what Harry’s evil plan is when the host approaches them,  clipboard on hand.

"Zayn Malik?" she asks, reading the list. She looks between the two of them, probably trying to figure out who’s who. "You’re up after the next singer.”

"What?" Zayn exclaims, spitting a portion of the whiskey he was in the middle of sipping. He looks at Harry threateningly, setting his glass down and pointing a finger at him. "You signed me up?"

"You said it was my turn to choose what to do today,” Harry says, giving the host a thumbs up so she could go and follow up with the other singers.

"No. You're not making me,” Zayn says, signaling the bartender to refill his drink. “Never in a million years." As soon as the bartender refills his glass with more booze, Zayn immediately empties its contents.

"You made me break and enter into my professor's house," Harry says, raising his eyebrows at him. "You owe me."

"I owe you shit," Zayn exclaims, ordering another glass of whiskey. "If anything, you owe me."

"Come on, Zayn," Harry says, shaking his arm and putting on his best pout. "Please?"

"Your pout has no effect on me, Styles," Zayn says, monotone. Refusing to look at him and focusing on the person making his drink. "Nice try though."

Harry doesn't respond. He only stares at him, doing his best impression of Liam's puppy dog eyes and his irresistible pout. No one has ever said no to this before.

It takes a while; even the bartender tells Zayn to stop Harry from making the face but eventually, Zayn’s standing up and drinking the rest of his alcohol.

"Fucking fine." Zayn snaps. Harry dances in victory. _Never underestimate the power of the lower lip jutting out._ He watches Zayn approach the woman hosting the event, and sees her hand him a thick song book. Harry guesses she’s making him choose what to sing.

He watches Zayn flip through the pages of the book from the bar, he even takes his phone out to snap a picture or two of Zayn so he can send them to their friends. _I am so going to enjoy this._

After the man singing a rendition of Jason Mraz’s _I’m yours_ gets off the stage, the host calls on Zayn. Harry whoops and claps, switching the photo mode on his phone to video so he can record this moment. He catches Zayn roll his eyes at him.

A few drunk girls from one of the tables near the stage wolf-whistle at him as he crosses the stage to go to the microphone. Once the crowd has calmed, the familiar sound of a grammy award-winner’s intro music as well as Zayn’s - surprisingly angelic - voice fills the room.

_“Hey what’s up it’s been a while.” he sings, making the crowd go wild once again. “Talkin’ ‘bout it’s not my style.”_

Harry watches him, mesmerized as Zayn sings the rest of the song. _Apparently he’s not a good singer, he’s a great one._

Zayn has the whole crowd clapping to the beat of the song, the group of drunk girls already standing, dancing. _“This probably gonna sound wrong, Promise it won’t last long. Oh,”_ Harry’s dick jerks in interest, _“oh. If we could never go back, thought you’d like to know that..”_

He sings the chorus, making almost everyone including Harry rise from their seats and applaud. He delivers the song as if it’s his own, adding high notes that aren’t even in the actual song.

 _“He don’t know,”_ he whisper-sings in the mic, _“He don’t know your booooooooodddyyy..”_

He sings with both his hands clutching the mic stand and eyes closed. He looks so hot, Harry’s positive he has a semi hard-on from watching him.

 _“He won’t love you like I wooould.”_ He ends the song with an impressive high note, making everyone in the bar clap and shout compliments at him.

It takes a while before Zayn can come to his and Harry’s spot in the bar, thanks to the group of girls from earlier flirting with him as soon as he’s off the stage. He tries hard to keep himself from walking over to their table and pulling Zayn back to him.

“You’re full of surprises, Zayn Malik,” Harry says as soon as Zayn’s within earshot. He grins at him in return and takes the shot of tequilla Harry ordered for him.

“That I am,” he says, toasting his glass with Harry’s. “Cheers.”  They drink their shot, Harry wincing at the taste but swallowing nonetheless. He orders another round and takes a seat on the barstool beside him.

“That was incredible, Zayn,” he says after a while, watching the next performer on the stage. “I didn’t know you could sing _that_ well. I bet you’re better than your dad now.”

Zayn chuckles at him. “I doubt it,” he says, eyes shining. “If you think _that_ was incredible, you should hear him. He’s beyond incredible. I’m telling you.”

“Well you’ll have to introduce me someday,” Harry says earnestly. “Maybe he could teach me a thing or two about singing.”

“Maybe.” There’s a pause, not the comfortable kind of pauses that Harry has grown accustomed to when he’s with Zayn - it’s the awkward type. Why the fuck did he ask to meet Zayn’s dad?

He takes a look at his empty shot glass and blames it on the alcohol. _No more booze for me._

They don’t speak for a few minutes, they just watch the next performer sing on the stage and sip on their drinks. Zayn excuses himself to go to the bathroom and the moment he’s gone, Harry smacks his head on the bar table. _This is turning into a disaster._

He sends his friends a text during Zayn’s absence, but they only reply with useless advice like _‘kiss him like you mean it,’ ‘ask more stuff about his dad to make it less awkward,’_ and Louis’ _‘since when am I a fucking Zayn expert?!’_

Once he returns from the loo, Harry decides to break the silence. "How long has it been since you last saw your dad?" He looks at Zayn and he sees the same dreamy look he had on his face the night they went swimming in Salt and Pepper’s pool.

"A few years," Zayn says, turning to stare at his half empty glass. The dreamy look remains. It looks like Harry didn’t imagine the look back then.

"A few years?" Harry exclaims, turning to look at him with wide eyes. No wonder he talks about his family like he hasn’t seen them in a long time. It’s cause he hasn’t in fact seen them in so long. "Why don't you go visit them?"

"It's a kind of a long story," he says, leaning back on the bar table.

"We've got time," Harry says, copying him and looking at Zayn with expectant eyes. "In fact, we've got all the time we need."

Zayn doesn't answer immediately, he only focuses on the rips in his jeans. Harry wonders if he’s crossed a line, if he’s taking it too far. He doesn’t want to push Zayn into giving him his life story. Especially not that he’s started to share tidbits about his life.

Harry is just about to apologize when Zayn breaks the silence this time. "My dad and I got into this huge fight the last time we saw each other," Zayn starts, making Harry turn his full attention to him. "I ran away from home and stayed in Manchester with my boyfriend. Well, ex-boyfriend now,” he says with a roll of his eyes.

"What did you fight about?" Harry asks, taking the bait. Feeding his curiosity since Zayn’s feeling generous tonight.

“Two things: My job and my ex,” Zayn says, emptying his glass of whiskey. “My ex convinced me to get this job at the firm he works at. And well, let’s say it wasn’t the type of job most parents would want their kids to have.”

“Why did you take the job then?” Harry asks, his mind updating his mental list of things about Zayn.

“I wanted to help out at home with the expenses,” he says, simply. “My dad was the only one working to put food on the table. I had to help him.” Harry’s starting to see through Zayn’s tough guy facade, can already see how gentle he truly is. It warms Harry’s heart how fiercely Zayn loves his family.

“If you were only trying to help out, why’d he get mad?”

“He found out about it all,” Zayn says, focusing on the stage. Harry thinks he’s trying to avoid looking at him. “Made me break up with my ex and quit my job.”

“Well, did you?” Harry asks, he knows he should stop it. Knows that he’s somehow pushing his luck.

Zayn shakes his head to Harry’s surprise. “Nope, but we had a huge row though,” he says, taking a long swig of his drink. “I ran away and stayed at my ex’s. We broke up after a few months and I had to crash at a couple of friends’ for a few months.”

Harry clicks his tongue, thinking of a younger Zayn sleeping on different couches on different nights. It hits Harry why Zayn’s a bit protective when it comes to giving pieces of him away, why it took Zayn some time to share stuff about him. Harry goes to put his hand on top of Zayn’s.

Zayn looks from their hands to Harry’s face. “I’m sorry that happened to you,” Harry says meaningfully, “I didn’t know. Sorry for asking.”

“It’s- it’s okay,” he says, releasing a sigh. “I haven’t actually told anyone about it in years.”

He smiles at him a final time before removing his hand from Zayn’s. Harry doesn’t know if he’s overreacting, but hearing those words leave Zayn’s mouth makes him feel important. Makes him more fond of Zayn than he was a few minutes ago.

They watch the second to the last singer leave the stage.

“Oh yeah,” Harry says, turning to look sideways at Zayn. “What kind of job was it?” Before Zayn can respond, the host approaches them, cutting Zayn off from what he was about to say.

“Harry Smiles?” she asks, checking something on her clipboard.

“Uh, it’s Styles,” Harry says, correcting her. “Yeah?”

“You’re up next,” she says, not bothering to correct herself. “I was trying to get your attention earlier but you were busy talking.”

“Wait what?” he says, looking between her and a chuckling Zayn. “I didn’t sign-”

“Course you did,” Zayn says with a wink. And before Harry can yell at him about it, the woman drags him towards the stage.

Harry doesn’t take his eyes off of Zayn as he sings.

 

**~ * ~**

 

A few more weeks passed since that karaoke night together. Ever since that night, things shifted between him and Zayn. Something has definitely changed.

The more they go out together, the less Harry complains. It surprises Harry how he’s changed from _‘No you’re not making me do that’_ to _‘Might as well try it once.’_ Even Zayn didn’t hide his impressed look when he took Harry to get the moth tattoo and Harry didn’t complain once.

Not only that, it looks like Zayn’s changed in his own way too. He isn’t as bossy as he was before, actually asks Harry if it’s okay with him before they go do their thing. And from time to time, he even lets Harry plan the night. Harry took him to the shelter to meet the stray puppies and kittens. He’s convinced that Zayn will _officially_ volunteer any time soon.

Harry thinks it’s safe to say that the swallows on his chest are indeed very symbolic, that Zayn’s right. It is the start of a beautiful friendship. Or at least, Harry hopes it could also be the start of something more too. Cause yes, he admits it. He likes Zayn.

He told the lads about it. All three of them are happy for him - well, two of them are anyway, Louis is still convinced that something fishy is up with Zayn. 

Harry also wanted to update Aladdin but he’s been busy for the last few weeks as well, his status on _Skype_ always offline. He wanted to tell him that he followed his advice and ever since then, things sort of escalated between him and Zayn. He’s done trying to ignore the butterflies in his stomach whenever Zayn smiles at him, he’s done convincing himself that what he feels for Zayn is platonic. That even if he tries hard to control what he feels, it wouldn’t do him good.

**~ * ~**

Tonight, Niall invited the four of them - Harry, Louis, Liam and Zayn - to go to a friend of his’ house party, with promises of ‘ _There will be lots of good looking men and women there._ '

Harry decided to go (even though it is a school night and he has an early class with Salt and Pepper) not because of Niall's promise, but because Zayn was going to be there as well. The air smells of stale beer and cigarette smoke the moment they walk into the house. There are bodies everywhere, and Harry has to walk sideways just so he can go from one place to another.

He lost count and forgot almost all of the names of the people that Niall introduced them to. He only remembers the ones who look at Zayn maliciously. Harry would throw an arm around Zayn discreetly just to tell those people off.

“Would you quit acting like a jealous boyfriend?” Louis tells him when they’re in the kitchen to get some drinks, both hands on the kitchen island, looking at him with an eyebrow raised.

“I’m not,” Harry says defensively, getting two bottles for him and Zayn. He’s not jealous, he’s just.. Protective.

“Yeah right, Styles,” he says with scoff, accepting the beer Harry hands him. “Anyone from a mile away can hear you grunt whenever someone would approach Zayn.”

“That’s not true,” Harry says, putting the two bottles down and pointing a finger at Louis. “I’m just looking out for him. Didn’t you see the look in their eyes?”

“So what if they look at him the way you do,” Louis says with a roll of his eyes.

“I don’t look at Zayn like that,” Harry retorts, remembering the predatory look on their faces as they circle Zayn and hold his hand a few seconds too long for a normal handshake- not that Harry’s counting. “Those people look at Zayn like he’s some kind of trophy.”

“Then try and cool it with the dirty looks, yeah?” he says sharply. “I know you like-”

“Hey,” someone says from behind, cutting Louis off. Harry turns to look at the stranger, his voice slightly familiar. Once he turns around, he’s surprised to see the red-headed guy with the book from the club before. New name: Ice Guy.

“I know you,” he says, taking a few steps towards Harry.  “You’re that guy who fell on top of me.”

“Oh yeah,” Harry says, cheeks turning pink out of embarrassment. He was hoping he’d never see this guy again, but like always, the odds are not in his favor.

“Who would have thought we’d meet again?” he says with a laugh, taking a sip from the bottle of beer he has in his hands.

“Yeah, I know,” Harry says awkwardly, ruffling his hair just so his hands have something to do. “What a coincidence.”

“Yeah, coincidence,” he parrots back, inserting a hand inside his pocket. “So are you with someone?”

“Actually-” Harry starts to say but is cut off by a familiar sexy voice.

“Harry?” Zayn says, entering the kitchen. He beelines towards Harry and grabs the bottle Harry opened for him. “Where were you? I was- oh.” He pauses as soon as his eyes fall on Ice Guy, the color in his cheeks disappearing.

“You okay?” Harry asks at the same time Ice Guy goes, “Hey, have we met before?”

Zayn looks between Harry and Ice Guy. Harry could have sworn he saw Zayn gulp when Ice Guy squints his eyes at him.

“Uhm, uhh,” Zayn says, fidgeting, “N-no. I don’t think so.”

“Are you sure?” he says, tilting his head and looking at Zayn intently, as if scanning his face so it can activate his memory. “I could have sworn we’ve met before.”

“Sorry mate,” Zayn says, taking a tentative sip from his bottle of beer. “I think you have the wrong guy.” It’s Harry’s turn this time to look from Ice Guy to Zayn. He looks at Louis and can see him do the same.

Zayn is fidgeting. Harry can sense his nerves from a few feet away, unlike Ice Guy who’s still continuing to assess Zayn like a doctor would a patient.

“I think you have the wrong guy,” Harry says, stepping in between Zayn and Ice Guy.

“No!” Ice Guy says, clapping his hands together. “I know you! You’re-”

“Oi!” a certain Irish accent booms from the direction of the entryway. The four of them turn their attention towards the entrance to the kitchen and they see a drunk and impatient looking Niall, arms crossed and cheeks tinted red.

“I’ve been waiting ages for you lot,” Niall says irritably, entering the kitchen and grabbing each of Harry and Zayn’s arms. “The beer pong competition’s about to start!”

Harry’s liver is screaming out its disagreement with Niall’s offer, but he goes anyway since Zayn is nodding his head eagerly, not even giving Ice Guy a second look as Niall leads them towards the beer pong table, leaving Louis with a ‘ _Why Are You Leaving Me With Him’_ look. Harry shoots back a ‘ _I’m Sorry, I’ll Make it Up To You Soon_ ’ look

 

**~ * ~**

 

Zayn has been disconnected from reality ever since that encounter with Ice Guy. Harry tried to engage him in a conversation or two, but Zayn would only reply with one word answers or nod his head in return when Harry would ask if he was okay.

Once the beer pong game is over, Zayn excuses himself to go to the loo, leaving Harry with a slightly drunk- No, really drunk Niall.

Niall’s drunkenly kissing Harry on the cheek for helping him win the match against some guys he works with. “I ‘ove you, ‘Arry,” he says, accent thickening. “You and Zayn are so good for- Where’s Zayn?

He tries to spin around, and Harry places a hand at small of his back, making sure he doesn't trip while he looks around the room to keep an eye out for Zayn. “I dunno,” Harry mumbles as Niall slumps on the couch, half sleeping.

Harry finds Zayn after almost an hour, sitting alone on the back porch, balancing a bottle of beer in his hand. He has his eyes on the night sky, twinkling like the stars. Harry takes a seat next to him and parrots him, watching the night sky like Zayn is.

It's just the two of them outside, the rest of the guests inside singing Happy Birthday to whoever’s birthday it is. The sun set two hours ago. The night sky would have been completely dark if it wasn’t for the bright lights of the street lamps.

Zayn shifts his position to face Harry. The first thing Harry notices are his glassy eyes and tear-stained cheeks.

“Sorry for disappearing,” Zayn says after a while, his voice hoarse. Harry would like  very much to put his arms around him so he can somehow make him feel better, but he stays rooted in place, not knowing what to do. “I just-”

“No, it’s okay,” Harry says, sliding closer to him so he can put his hand on top of Zayn’s as comfort. “Seriously, no need to even explain.”

“No but I do,” Zayn says, tone fierce. Like he’s more convincing himself than he’s convincing Harry. “I do.”

“Okay,” Harry replies quietly, putting both his hands up.

Tense silence surrounds them. It is the kind of silence Harry doesn’t want to disturb. He watches Zayn from the corner of his eyes and can see him anxiously tug on the hem of his shirt, still fidgeting like he was two hours ago.

“You see that,” Harry says suddenly, unable to control himself. He points up to the sky at a spoon-looking constellation he looked up online (for the sole purpose of satisfying his own curiosity and not for impressing certain neighbors with sexy voices, thank you very much).

Zayn nods, fixing his gaze on the stars above.

“That’s the-”

“Big Dipper,” Zayn finishes for him, not as fidgety as he was a few minutes ago. They stare up at the constellation together, the tense turning into their all too familiar comfortable silence. “When I was back at Bradford, it took me a couple of months until I could find the Big Bear and all the other groups of stars.”

Harry absentmindedly watches Zayn’s lips move as he rambles on about the different constellations he learned back in Bradford. It’s like a switch flipped. One more thing to add on Harry’s mental list of things about Zayn: Talking about stars makes him less nervous.

“Was it better in Bradford?” Harry asks, cutting Zayn off from his rant. “Could you see more stars?”

Zayn looks at Harry, as if analyzing his face. “Yeah,” he answers after a while, sounding distant. Harry feels as though he’s Pandora who’s opened Zayn’s box of sad feelings. He doesn’t want him to get sad now again, or ever.

“That was the only thing better about Bradford,” he continues. “I prefer it here.”

“Really?” Harry asks, thinking of the family and friends he left behind. “Why?”

“Because I have you lads,” he says as he rolls to his stomach, resting his chin on Harry’s crossed legs. “In Bradford, I was alone, but here I’ve got you and the lads.”

He smiles at him despite the growing curiosity. Zayn only ever shares pieces and bits of himself with Harry and this added knowledge about Zayn just makes Harry want to ask more stuff about him, but he keeps his mouth shut. Waiting for Zayn to willingly give a piece of himself away.

“Thanks Harry,” Zayn says, smiling at him. It is the type of smile that makes the corner of his eyes wrinkle. “I appreciate this.”

“No worries,” Harry says as calmly as he can, trying to stop himself from throwing a fist in the air for successfully making Zayn happy. “You can talk to me anytime.”

Zayn nods at him, smile still in place but dropping a little as time goes by. _Noooo. Don’t stop doing that smile._

“About that,” Zayn says, releasing a sigh. Smile completely gone, a serious expression replacing it. “There’s something I need to tell you.”

“Anything,” Harry mumbles,

“About that guy earlier,” Zayn says, still nervous but less fidgety compared earlier. “I’ve been meaning to tell you about that job-”

“There you are!” someone says, cutting Zayn off.

They both turn around to the source of the voice and are met once again by Ice Guy. _You were cute at first but you’re definitely annoying now._

“Hey,” Harry says, voice strained. “We were sort of talking here. Would you mind if-?”

“Oh shoot, sorry,” he says, taking a few steps backwards. “I just wanted to tell your friend here where I know him from.”

Zayn immediately springs up to his feet and takes a few steps towards Ice Guy. He points a finger to his chest and says, “Follow me” under his breath. He promises Harry he’ll talk to him later as he bounds down the porch and goes across the back yard with Ice Guy hot on his heels.

Harry stares at them as he sits in the same spot Zayn left him at. He watches everything from his spot, not daring to look away in case Ice Guy makes a move on Zayn or something. So far, Zayn has his arms crossed and is quietly arguing with Ice Guy,  who’s currently wearing an annoying shit eating grin as he tells Zayn something.

"If you had laser eyes,” a familiar friendly voice says, “I bet you'd burn a hole in the back of the poor lad's head." Liam sits down beside Harry and hands him a drink which Harry accepts. They toast their bottles, and Harry gulps down the bottle till it's half empty. He winces as the beer he consumed settles in his stomach.

"Liam?" Harry asks, eyes not leaving Zayn and Ice Guy.

"Hmm?" he hums, also glancing towards the direction of Zayn. “What is it?"

"Can I ask you a rhetorical question?" he asks, sipping his drink again.

"Ask away."

"What if you're in sort of love with someone,” he starts. Liam shifts his gaze from Zayn to Harry, eyes wide. “Someone out of your league? Someone you know is way too good for you? What do you do?"

"Is there anyone who's too good for you?" Liam jokes, draping an arm around Harry. Harry only gives him a serious look. "Is this about Zayn?"

"What?" Harry says defensively. "It was a rhetorical question, Li."

He rolls his eyes at him, clearly it was a mistake to lie to one of his best friends. "Enough with the BS, Haz. I've seen how you've been looking at him lately."

"Just answer the question, Liam."

"Well, I dunno," Liam says, looking up at the starry sky, same as Zayn earlier, as he takes a drink of his beer. "Aren't the people we fall in love with all out of our leagues? I mean, the day Zayn introduced Soph, I thought she was amazing. I thought I’d have no chance with her, let alone go out on a date with her, but here we are."

“I suppose,” Harry mumbles, looking over at Zayn again. Ice Guy has an arm draped around Zayn and Zayn’s looking a lot uncomfortable. Like, he wants to beat the shit out of the guy but something’s holding him back.

“We accept the love we think we deserve,” Liam says, quoting _The Perks of being a Wallflower_ at him. He stands to his feet, hands balled up into fists. Liam’s right.

He approaches Zayn, Liam rooting for him somewhere in the background. Harry goes to him with the courage Zayn himself gave him over the last few weeks. He dodges people left and right, ignoring the guys and girls greeting him as he walks over to the guy, the _only_ guy he cares about.

Once Harry’s within Ice Guy and Zayn’s line of vision, Ice Guy waves at him and Zayn looks at him with a concerned look on his face.

“Hey Harry,” he hears Ice Guy say once he is only a few steps away. “Do you want to get-” And before he could finish his sentence, Harry makes a beeline towards Zayn.

He sees Zayn open his mouth, maybe about to ask what is going on but before he has the chance to voice out the questions in his eyes, Harry wraps an arm around his waist, tilting his chin up and kissing him. Zayn’s shocked for a second but he eventually returns the kiss Harry gives him.

It isn’t the first time they kissed, but kissing Zayn is something different. Like it makes perfect sense that Harry remained unkissed for so long. They kiss and kiss and when they separate, Harry swears he can see the constellations Zayn’s been talking about earlier, shining in his eyes.

 

**~ * ~**

 

Harry doesn’t know how he and Zayn managed to move from kissing at the party to kissing in the hallway, just outside their dorms. All he knows is that once they’ve separated their seemingly-glued lips, thanks to the continuous buzzing of Zayn’s phone, they are transported back their building.

“I need to go and read something for class,” Zayn says as he pushes Harry away, lips tinted pink and his hands still on Harry’s chest.

“Just one more kiss,” he replies, trying to lean in and sneak in another snog before he goes, but Zayn pushes him away harder this time, chuckling. “Please.”

“No,” Zayn says firmly but with a fond look on his face. Harry can hear the his phone buzz again. “I need to study. You should too. Add stuff to that speech we’re working on.”

“We’re?”

“Yeah,” Zayn says, stepping into Harry’s space and offering him a light smack on the mouth. “We.” And with that, he turns around and enters his dorm, leaving Harry staring at Zayn’s closed door, in the hallway.

 _We._ He thinks of that word with a huge smile on his face. Unable to help but overthink what it could mean for them tomorrow and coming days. If it’s ‘ _we’_ as in Zayn and Harry doing their thing, breaking one rule at a time kind of _‘we.’_ Or is it _‘we’_ as in, we’re in a relationship, we’re endgame, it’s you and me, us, together as a couple kind of _‘we.’_ Harry likes to think it’s the latter.

Harry turns to his own door to open it, grin still in place. Still thinking of the possibility of being together _officially_ with Zayn. _Fuck. ‘Officially.’ That word would have scared the living shit out of me a few months ago_.

Once he opens his door wide open, the grin he’s wearing slowly slips as he sees the faces of his three best friends. His three suspicious looking best friends. Harry tries not to over think it so he can preserve the happiness Zayn instilled inside of him.

“Hey?” Harry says as happily as he can. “What’s up? Sorry for leaving the party early. I was sort of occupied.” He closes and locks the door of his dorm and notices _Pretty Little Liars_ playing on his laptop. _Okay, that’s new._

“Oh don’t sweat,” Liam says nervously, wiping his palms on his jeans. “We were just – uhm - hanging out.”  Harry crosses the room and drops his keys on his desk, studying their _too-innocent_ faces.

“Oh,” Harry says after a while.

“So the three of you just all of a sudden decided to hang out at my place while watching _Pretty Little Liars_?” Harry asks, pointing to the laptop. “I was expecting you to watch something like UFC or football or whatever.”

“Uhm,” Liam begins, he looks at Louis and Niall pleadingly. Harry remembers the time Liam accidentally breaking the guitar Harry’s boyfriend - _now ex_ \- gave him and he remembers Louis and Niall covering for him just so Harry wouldn’t notice the guitar with the broken strings.

Harry just looks at him, eyebrows raised and arms crossed like the way his mom did to him when she was trying to catch Harry in some kind of sin he did when he was younger.

“So, you and Zayn, huh?” Niall cuts in, changing the topic completely.

“Sort of,” Harry says, reserved. He takes a seat on the vacant chair facing the lads, trying to read their facial expressions.

“Oh,” he says, interested. “So you’re not like, a couple yet or something?”

“No,” Harry says. “We haven’t actually talked about that yet.”

“Why not?” Louis pipes in, joining in on the ongoing interrogation. _Something is definitely up. Since when the hell was Louis interested in his’ and Zayn’s relationship?_

“Wait, what’s with all the questions?” Harry asks defensively, standing up and crossing his arms.  “Since when did you become interested in me and Zayn?”

“I’ve always been interested in your dating life, Harold,” Louis says, rolling his eyes at him. “It just took some time before Zayn got to me.” _Bullshit,_ Harry thinks. Louis has never, not once, cared about the guys or girls Harry’s been with. And out of every person Harry’s gone out with, he has shown dislike to Zayn the most.

“No,” Harry replies firmly, causing Liam to gulp and Niall to focus on the show. “We’ve been friends ever since. You can’t fool me. Not after that incident with Liam and my old guitar -”

 _“_ Hey, it was an accident! _”_ Liam pipes in.

 _“_ I asked you all about that Dave guy before, _”_ Niall also argues.

“I know it was an accident, Li,” Harry starts, “My point is, you all acted this weird when you tried to cover it up but I found out in the end. And his name wasn’t even Dave, Niall, so don’t even start.”

“Harry,” Louis says, standing up so he can face Harry, eye to eye. “Can’t we just be happy for you?” Harry wants to believe him, wants to continue staying in the moment after his and Zayn’s kiss but he cannot. He huffs out a breath of frustration, sitting on the seat Louis vacated earlier.

He catches Liam’s eyes and knows what to do next. Out of the three of them, Liam is usually the one who almost always fails to hold his tongue. And judging by the way he’s avoiding Harry’s eyes, he knows that it wouldn’t take long to make him budge.

“Liam?” Harry says innocently, Niall and Louis groan at the same time.

“Y-yeah?” he answers with a gulp. Harry purposely ignoring Louis’ _‘I’m going to kill you‘_ face.

“What’s up?” Harry asks, attempting to look upset. “Why are you keeping things from me?”

“I-I don’t know what-” Liam stutters, trying to arrange himself on the couch, looking everywhere except Harry’s direction. “I have no clue what’s happening.”

“Then why won’t you look at me?” Harry asks, putting on a pout. ‘ _The pout_ ’ always works on Liam. “Don’t pull this _‘can’t we be interested in our best mate’s life?’_ shit. It’s not going to work.”

“Nothing,” Liam says exasperatedly, eyes more worried. Harry looks at and thinks that he’s left with no choice. _It’s time to bring out the big guns._

“You owe me after that paper I wrote for you for Mr. Sanders’ class,” he says, releasing a fake sigh and fake frown.

 _“Well played, Styles,_ Niall says at the same time Louis mutters “ _Cheating prick_ under his breath.

Liam shifts his gaze from Harry to Louis and then back to Harry, looking more nervous than he was two minutes ago. Harry can see from the corner of his eyes how Louis is giving Liam his most intimidating stare. Harry rivals that by offering Liam his best version of puppy dog eyes. _It’s on, Tomlinson. Never challenge the Styles Pout._

Harry starts the countdown. _Three. Two. One_ -

“Okay, okay.” Liam releases a deep breath, looking conflicted and trying hard to avoid Louis’ piercing stare. “I’ll tell you, just quit it with the puppy dog eyes.”

Harry does a little dance of victory. Liam releases a sigh and goes to look at Harry with a mixture of worry and hesitance.

“It’s about,” he begins, finding it hard to use his words.

“It’s Zayn,” Niall supplies for him.

“Zayn?” Harry asks, raising an eyebrow at them. That wasn’t what Harry was expecting. “What about him?” He schools his face to look neutral, trying to ignore the worst case scenarios popping inside his head.

“Well there’s no other way to put it,” Niall begins, scratching the side of his head and focusing on his socks. “So might as well show it.”

“Show me what?” Niall doesn’t answer, instead he goes to the laptop playing _Pretty Little Liars_ and switches to the other tab Harry didn’t notice earlier. He pulls up a video by clicking something in the screen. He recognizes the room the video was stuck in as it loads. _Aladdin._

“I don’t understand. That’s Aladdin’s room,” Harry says, his eyebrows scrunching. “What’s Zayn got to do with him?”

Liam puts a hand around his shoulders in a comforting way. “Everything, Haz,” he says, giving Harry one of his _‘trust me on this’_ looks. Somehow, to Harry it reads ‘ _please don’t panic_ ’. He huffs out a breath as Niall clicks the play button.

“It’s a recording of an old session,” Niall says as Aladdin enters the video with only his torso showing, the camera probably not setup properly yet. He recognizes that heart tattoo on the hip.

A few minutes pass and another body joins Aladdin’s in on the video, the second body heading to the camera and adjusting it so it could see their faces.

 _What the fucking fuck._ That’s the first coherent thing that enters Harry’s mind the moment he sees Aladdin’s face without his wig and mask.

“Is that?” Harry tries to say, rubbing his eyes and refocusing his vision on the video again.

“Yes Harry,” Louis says, breaking his silence. ”Zayn is a camboy. He’s Aladdin.”

He stares at Louis with a dumbfounded look on his face, waiting for him to say something like _‘just kidding’_ or _‘psych’_ or whatever, but he doesn’t.

“Hey there,” Aladdin - Zayn - says, waving at the camera. “Hey it’s me, Aladdin.” Looks like his face wasn’t as secret as his name at the time.

Zayn slash Aladdin goes through with the video, first by introducing the guy who adjusted the video camera earlier. “This is Ali,” Zayn says introducing the guy with him.

He then tells whoever he is video chatting with a random story of what happened to him that day, just like their session. Harry always thought he was the only one Aladdin shared stories with. Guess he was wrong.

“Okay, as you’ve requested,” Aladdin/Zayn continues, “Ali here is going to suck my dick for you.”

“No,” Harry says, standing up and walking around the laptop so he wouldn’t see. “Stop it.”

“Don’t you want to finish -”

“NO!” he shouts, causing the three to stay still and quiet. Liam hurriedly pauses the video, the room is filled with silence, apart from the music coming from the dorm next door - Zayn or Aladdin’s dorm. Harry can’t believe it.

“Harry?” Louis says, breaking the silence. Walking over to Harry to wrap an arm around him. “You okay?”

_What happened to ‘we’?_

Harry remembers Zayn’s consistent text messages and phones calls, he recalls the days when Zayn would disappear. He cannot help but wonder if the phone calls and texts were from clients.

“Haz, you okay?” Liam asks, snapping him out of it, massaging his back soothingly. “Don’t overthink it.”

“Yeah Haz,” Niall says comfortingly, as he takes a seat at the floor by his feet, “I mean, don’t you think it’s great that your favorite camboy and almost lover are just one person?”

_Almost Lover._

“What’s so great about that?” Harry snaps, unable to control his temper. “Where did you get all this anyway?”

“That redhead guy from the party,” Liam says, looking upset by the moment. “He got drunk and told all about Zayn’s.. Secret identity. _Great. Who else has seen Zayn naked?_

“How?”

“He was client of Zay- I mean, Aladdin’s,” Niall says, blushing. If it wasn’t for the dullness that Harry’s feeling in his heart, he would have laughed. He finds it funny how his night went from amazing to a disaster. He cannot believe he got to share that.. Part of Zayn with that guy.

“Harry,” Liam says disturbing his train of thoughts, hands in his pocket and avoiding Harry’s eyes. “I know you’re upset and all but can I ask you something?”

“Yes,” Harry replies, mind still wandering.

“Does it matter?” he asks. “Does it matter that that’s what Zayn does for a living?”

“No,” Harry says, effectively stopping the millions of questions populating in his head. He stares at Liam, the boy with the puppy dog eyes. “That doesn’t matter at all.”

“Then why are you upset?” Niall asks, eyes full of concern.

“I don’t know, ” Harry answers after a while. “Maybe it’s because it bothers me that I’m not the only one? That there are others.” That it isn’t really the _‘we’_ Harry had hoped that he and Zayn would become.

“Harry-”

“Just save it,” Harry says, stopping Louis. All he wants to do is lie down in bed, try to get his mind intact since he still needs to add stuff to the essay he’ll be writing for Salt and Pepper’s class.

Liam only nods and goes to hug Harry. “Sorry for ruining your night, Haz,” Liam says, releasing him from the hug and backpedalling to the door along with the other two. “Honestly, I thought you’d be thrilled about it.”

 

**~ * ~**

 

Harry wakes up with a groan, not wanting to get up from bed due to the lack of sleep. He spent all night connecting the dots, thinking of what ifs and analyzing every situation he’s ever had with Zayn. Zayn - Aladdin. Whatever.

He practically drags his body out of bed and into the shower to brush his teeth. He contemplates whether he should go to class or just stay in bed and catch up on some sleep, because he learned that attending class while he’s in a bad mood makes the day ten times worse.

Once he’s done brushing his teeth and is about to lie down on the bed once again and play hooky, he hears his phone ding. It’s probably from one of the boys. He checks his phone and sees that it’s from Zayn.

_You busy today? Was thinking of playing hooky. U in? - Z xxx_

He ignores the butterflies caused by the three x’s at the end of Zayn’s text message. He probably sent that to countless others, Harry thinks. Heading towards his dresser so he can start preparing for his first class. He doesn’t have the heart to face Aladdin - Zayn yet. Not now.

_Busy today with Salt and Pepper’s class. Next time? H._

He sends the text to Zayn despite Salt and Pepper’s class being free the whole day, their professor giving them the time to devote themselves to the essay they’re writing. He hears his phone ring the moment he’s out the door.

_Boringgg! ;( i’ll see you later though right?? xx Z_

_Maybe. I’ll send you a text. H._

_Okay grumpy :( text me soon okay? I’ll miss u today :o)_

Harry doesn’t reply to the message, he only shuts his phone down, ignoring his conscious mind screaming _‘what the hell are you doing’_ at him.

**~ * ~**

 

_Hazzzzz why aren’t you answering my texts??? Z_

 

_You forgot to leave your key under the mat. What happened to our deal???!!! :(( Z_

 

_Hey r u mad at me harry??_

 

_Why arent u answering my texts?? Are you avoiding me?? Answer back_

 

_Hey can we talk? I miss you x Zayn_

 

_Please talk to me. Knock anytime. Z_

 

_So ur obviously ignoring my text messages. Find me if you need me. We need to talk. Bye._

 

It’s been roughly a week since Harry’s last seen and spoken with Zayn. The last time they spoke was Harry’s vague text message promising he’d text Zayn back.  He tried to open up their conversation and start to type out a _‘hey’_ but he just couldn’t hit the send button.

He’s at the library, currently studying for a quiz, book propped open. Harry has been there for more than two hours and so far, nothing has sunk into his mind. He isn’t usually the type of person who finds it hard to concentrate but lately, maybe because of a certain neighbor with a sexy voice, he’s been having issues concentrating. He checks his phone and sees no more messages from Zayn.

He sighs, bringing his book up and attempting to understand the words on the book. A few minutes have passed when he hears the chair in front of him creak and a certain male clear his throat.

Harry stills, not ready to face his neighbor with the sexy voice. _It’s now or never_ , Harry thinks as he puts the book down. He’s relieved - and surprised - to find out that the person isn’t who he thought it was.

 

_Guy with the book slash Ice Guy._

 

“What do you want?” Harry says as he releases a frustrated sigh, standing up to collect his books and heading towards the shelves so he can return the textbooks. Ice Guy follows him, making Harry release a second sigh. He didn’t even know that this douche studies at the same school.

“Can we talk?” he says, leaning on the bookshelf where Harry is returning the books at.

“No,” Harry says, returning the last book from the pile and walking towards his bag and journal.

“So you and Aladdin, huh?” he says, ignoring Harry’s refusal to converse.

“He has a name, you know.”

“Yeah,” he says with a roll of his eyes. “Zack. But who cares, the thing is you’re actually going out with Aladdin in the flesh. I’ve had a couple of-”

“Please,” Harry says, dragging out his vowels and looking at him murderously. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Why not?”

Harry doesn't answer, he only stops in his tracks and pinches the bridge of his nose. Praying to whoever’s up there to grant him a whole lot of patience, otherwise he’s going to hurt somebody.

“You like him,” he hears him say. Harry continues to walk, not wanting to have this conversation with Ice Guy of all people. He follows Harry, still running his mouth.

“Hey it’s okay,” he says, keeping up with Harry. “I know how you feel. I felt it too.”

“How could you possibly know,” Harry deadpans, still continuing to walk to his next class despite him being thirty minutes early. He was hoping Ice Guy would let him go but he proves him wrong when he enters the classroom along with Harry.

“I’ve been there before,” he says, taking the empty seat next to Harry’s. “We were together and he left me.”

“What?”

“That’s why I said I recognized him,” Ice Guy says. “Remember? At the party?” And yes, Harry actually remembers but at that time, he thought it was nothing. That he was just some guy just wanting to get Zayn’s attention.

“Yeah,” Harry says, “So what?”

“So we had a thing before. It was exactly like the two of you now. Only, I didn’t know what his true identity was,” he explains, taking out his phone, keying something in it and eventually showing Harry a picture of what looks like Aladdin, or technically Zayn, with Ice Guy. Zayn is in a pink wig and a snapback, his face covered with aviator sunglasses. “We were seeing each other, kissed and maybe even did some stuff that’s way more than kissing and just when I thought that it was forever, he calls the whole thing off.”

“And what does that have to do with me?” Harry asks as he raises an eyebrow at him.

“Everything!” he exclaims. “Don’t you see? He’s just using you. Haven’t you noticed the text messages he’s been receiving? There are others. Not just you.”

“I don’t care,” Harry lies, ignoring the pain in his chest that is most definitely _not_ caused by Zayn, thank you.

“That’s good,” Ice guys says cheerfully. “You shouldn’t. Don’t waste your time on that guy, no actually, might as well fuck the guy and leave him before he leaves you. I mean, he is a sex worker after all.” Harry hears Ice Guy’s phone alarm go off, indicating a warning that his next class is coming up soon.

Harry knows that he should smack the daylights out of this guy for talking like that about Zayn but instead, he watches him collect his things and put his backpack on.

“Think about it,” he says, looking at Harry a final time. “Don’t let him break your heart first.” And with that, he exits the room.

**~ * ~**

 

Two days after Harry’s talk with Ice Guy, he finally sees Zayn hanging outside their dorms, reading a book. He’s wearing eyeglasses and the leather jacket he had stolen from Harry the night they broke into Salt and Pepper’s house.

He looks up at the sound of Harry’s boots, dark circles prominent under his eyes, and his usually groomed hair looking slightly matted. Harry had almost forgotten about the grudge he was feeling towards the boy by looking at the state of him. _Keyword: Almost._

Zayn stands as he tries to fix his hair, Harry staying rooted in place, watching Zayn get to his feet. Once they’re at eye level, another one of their impromptu staring contests begins. Only difference is this time, the air is charged with tension between the two. Harry would like it very much to just forget about the insecurities he’s feeling, forget Ice Guy and work on the _‘we’_ part Zayn had said during the last time they saw each other. But his mouth remains shut and his feet are glued in place.

It takes a few minutes before Zayn decides to break the silence. “Are you going to ignore me even when we’re standing right in front of each other?” he asks quietly.

Harry shakes his head, trying to gather his words together to string a sort of sentence together. “N-no,” he manages to blurt out, releasing a deep breath. “Sorry, I was just-”

“Don’t tell me you were busy,” Zayn says, looking at him with fire in his eyes. “I saw you and the lads hanging out at the club last night.” _Shit. Niall promised that they’d be out of sight at that bar downtown._

“You know how Louis is,” Harry lies, taking a few tentative steps towards Zayn. “He can be persistent.”

“True, yet somehow, I’m finding that hard to believe,” Zayn mutters. The usual playful tone in his voice gone, Harry notes.

“Zayn, look,” Harry starts to say, ruffling his hair and closing the space separating them.

“No Harry, you look,” Zayn says, taking a few steps back. “If you think that you could just.. Kiss me or, or show me that you care and suddenly go ghost on me.. Don’t think I won’t let you get away with it.”

“It’s not that, Zayn,” he says. “It’s just -I don’t know.”

“You know,” Zayn says, heading towards his door and taking the keys out. “I didn’t think you’d be playing me like this.”

“Wait,” Harry says, grabbing onto his wrist to prevent Zayn from escaping him. “I’m sorry, I just..”

“What Harry?” Zayn says, turning to face him. Frustrated lines appearing in his face. “Tell me.”

As Harry looks into Zayn’s eyes, a war starts inside of him. A war between his head and heart. His head is telling to lie to him, to pretend he doesn’t know that Zayn’s Aladdin while his heart begs Harry to just tell him the truth, the he owes it to Zayn after ignoring him for more than a week after kissing him senseless right in the exact same spot they are in at the moment.

“Talk to me,” he hears Zayn say as he takes a step towards Harry, eyes wide with concern. Harry decides to go with his heart, he remembers Aladdin, or Zayn’s words from one of their previous sessions. _‘If he sticks till the end, he’s the one’._

He takes a deep breath, looking at Zayn seriously. Harry is just about to say something when the buzz of Zayn’s phone disturbs him. They both look at the offending phone in Zayn’s hand.

 _Don_ Harry reads on the phone screen. He watches Zayn open the text message and close it but before Zayn could put it back in his pocket it rings, the same name popping up on the screen. Zayn groans as he checks the phone again, It looks like _Don_ is calling.

“Go ahead,” Harry says, reading Zayn’s mind for the first time. “Might be important.”

Zayn looks at him for a few seconds before nodding his head and entering his bedroom. Harry hears him lock the bathroom door. He decides to head inside Zayn’s dorm so he can wait for him there.

The room looks exactly like Harry’s, a single window on one wall, a bed on the right part of the room - _only Zayn has batman bed sheets covering his mattress while Harry has pink stripes on his_ \- a desk and lamp on top of it and a big dresser.  He takes a seat on Zayn’s batman bed and waits for him.

As Harry waits for Zayn to return from the bathroom, he notices a huge box just beside the bed, labeled with a big graffitied _‘A’_ at the top. _Aladdin_.

_I shouldn’t. I shouldn’t be investigating. I should mind my own business and wait for Zayn._

It takes a while before Harry _‘accidentally’_ kicks it to it’s side, making its contents fall on the floor. Harry tries to keep his shit together when a collection of wigs, masks, makeup and underwear reveal themselves from the box.

He goes to his knees to quickly pick them up and put its contents back inside the box. Harry tries hard not to freak out everytime he recognizes a wig or a sex toy that Aladdin (or Zayn) had used during their previous sessions.

Once everything’s back inside and Harry has fashioned the box to how it looked like before he _accidentally_ kicked it, he sees a tube of lube Harry had forgotten to return, lying near the bathroom door.

Harry tiptoes towards the bathroom to retrieve the wandering lube, making sure he doesn’t create noise that’ll make Zayn burst out. Once he picks it up from the floor, he can’t help but overhear Zayn from inside.

“Yeah, I love you too, Don,” he hears Zayn say, making Harry stand motionless.

He wants to leave. Harry desperately wants to drag his own body out Zayn’s door and go on with modern life before he even met him but his legs and feet refuse to cooperate.

“Yeah, Don, I’ll go tell him now,” Zayn says. “Bye, see you soon.”

And as if on cue, Harry’s legs begin to work again and make it’s way back to Zayn’s bed, Harry sits the same time he opens the door, looking surprised to see Harry seated on his bed.

“Hey,” he says, pocketing his phone and watching Harry by the bathroom door. “Sorry ‘bout that, It was-”

“No, no worries,” Harry says, cutting him off. He stands and pockets the lube he picked up from the ground and approaches Zayn.

“Well, what is it you wanted to tell me earlier?” he asks.

This time, between the battle versus Harry’s brain and heart, his brain wins. “Nothing,” Harry says nonchalantly. He goes towards the door to exit Zayn’s dorm. “I just, I don’t know.”

“Well, you were trying to tell me something earlier,” Zayn says, blocking Harry’s way and looking at him frustratedly. “You owe me _at least_ an explanation and I demand you tell me.”  

 _Don’t let him break your heart first._ Ice Guy’s words from before, echoing.

“Nothing,” Harry says quietly, refusing to look at Zayn’s bambi eyes, putting both his hands inside his pocket so Zayn won’t do something that’ll change his mind like hold them. “I just-”

His hands goes around Zayn’s tube of lube. _Fuck the guy and leave him before he leaves you._ Ice Guy’s voice say inside his head again. Harry hears Zayn’s phone ring again and his vision turns dark.

“Actually,” Harry says quietly whilst looking at Zayn innocently. “I was wondering, would you like to go out with me?”

**~ * ~**

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Louis asks for the hundredth time as Harry sprays cologne all over his body. Harry’s preparing for his’ and Zayn’s first ever real date, real for Zayn anyway.

As soon as Harry had asked Zayn out on a date, it took awhile before he said yes, Harry having to lie about being stressed out and nervous about the essay he was writing for Salt and Pepper’s class, resulting his behavior towards Zayn over the last few days. Zayn almost didn’t fall for it, but the darkness the overtook Harry advised him to tell Zayn about his developing feelings towards him.

He reluctantly agreed, still suspicious over his shift in moods and having Harry promise not to ditch him again  in case he stresses out over another project again.

“I mean,” Louis continues to say from his Harry’s swivel chair as he attempts to put his boots on. “You could just tell him he’s a dick and never speak to him again.”

“Where’s the fun in that?” Dark Harry, _yes he’s giving this version of himself a nickname_ , says.

“Who are you and what the hell have you done to Harry Styles?” Louis says, watching Harry ruffle his hair a final time before leaving him with a gobsmacked look on his face.

 

**~ * ~**

 

Zayn drinks a lot of alcohol, Dark Harry making sure his glass doesn’t go empty. Cause everything’s fun with lots of alcohol involved.

“Are you trying to get me drunk, Styles?” Zayn says as he wraps his arms around Harry’s neck.

“What makes you say that?” he asks innocently, sipping on his jack coke, that has more coke than jack. Harry watches the other boy rest his head on his chest, a clear sign that he’s had enough to drink for the night.

“I don’t know,” Zayn says with hiccup, turning to look up at Harry with hazy eyes. “There’s something odd about you today, I just can’t put my finger on it.”

Harry shrugs at him with a mischievous dimpling smile. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Zayn looks at him, his eyes squinting. Maybe trying to read Harry’s facial expression. Harry schools his face to look neutral, to look normal. Zayn eventually gives up  trying to catch whatever it is Harry’s planning and rests his head on Harry’s chest again, sounds of snoring coming from the direction of his mouth.

If Harry wasn’t possessed with Ice Guy’s vengeful spirit, he would’ve started to carry him back to the dorms and tuck him in his bed Instead he lets Zayn nap in his arms for a while, rubbing his back in circles as an attempt to soothe him from the dizziness he’s feeling. _We’re not done yet_ , Dark Harry thinks.

Someone taps Harry from behind.  “Louis, for the last time,” Harry shout-whispers, turning to face his friend. “There’s no backing-”

“Hey,” Ice Guy says, a sort of evil grin in his face.

“Oh,” Harry says, wrapping his arms tighter around Zayn. “It’s just you.”

“I see that you’re taking my advice,” he says, motioning towards the sleeping Zayn in his arms. “Planning on making him pissed drunk and sleep with him later?”

“What am I? A rapist?” Harry says with a disgusted look on his face. Ice Guy’s words effectively making the darkness that controlled him disappear, making the good old Harry resurface.

“Get a fucking grip.”

“It’s not rape if he says yes,” he says. Harry gets up from his seat and pounces him, making sure he hits him hard enough for it to bruise.

He leaves him on the floor, massaging his swollen face, and goes over to a slightly less drunk Zayn. “What happened?” he asks Harry who’s currently putting one of Zayn’s arms around his shoulder and guiding him outside the bar.

“Nothing,” Harry says, gently helping him stand on his two wobbly feet and guiding him towards the exit of the bar. “C’mon, let’s get out of here.” Zayn only nods at him in response, maybe still too drunk to form an understandable sentence.

They pass by Ice Guy, who Zayn offers an annoyed look and mumbling something under his breath. Harry thinks he heard him say _‘Get away from me, pervert.’_

 

**~ * ~**

 

Zayn falls on Harry’s bed with a loud _thump_ , the feathers from his pink pillow puffing out. Harry can hear his groan from the doorway as he watches him thrash around the bed with an amused smile. Harry head towards the direction of the lamp, about to turn the lights off so Zayn could sleep soundly when he hears him whine about not being tired and that he was just resting his eyes.

“Nooooo,” Zayn whines, trying to push himself up to a sitting position so he can face Harry. “We need to talk.”

“We’ll talk tomorrow,” Harry says, a fond smile still plastered in his face, taking a seat at the edge of the bed, right beside Zayn’s feet. “I promise, I’ll be here.”

“No,” he says with a hiccup making Harry’s dimple pop out. He pushes Zayn to lie down on the bed, making sure to tuck the blankets under his chin. He was about to stand when he grabs hold of Harry’s hand, clinging tightly.

“Stay,” he manages, eyelids falling. “Stay here,” he moves to make enough room for Harry to lay beside him. Harry complies with a roll oh his eyes, trying to squeeze his body next to Zayn’s just to make the other boy less antsy.

Once they’re both settled in bed, Zayn laying down on Harry’s chest, sighing in satisfaction and Harry having an arm around Zayn, they stay in their usual comfortable silence, only the sounds of breathing filling the four corners of the room.

If you told Harry a couple of months ago, back when Harry was pining for the wrong guy at the club, back when he used to pay a once-stranger for pleasure that he was going to be cuddling with his _the one_ , he would have looked at you funnily and thought that you were crazy. If you told Harry before that he’d be a lot braver, a lot more adventurous compared to then, he would have laughed.   _Boy, how the tables have turned._

Harry can feel his eyelids drooping, a yawn threatening to escape his lips. He turns to look at Zayn, only to find him looking back at him. He looks at Harry as though he’s a book he’s reading.

“I feel the same way,” Zayn says after a while, a dreamy look on his face.

“What?”

“My life has changed a lot since then, too,” he says with a smile. “I would’ve thought you were lying if you told me about it a few months ago.”

“How do you do that?” Harry asks, amazed. He turns to look at Zayn. He grins at Harry, wrapping the hand that’s not massaging Harry’s back around his waist.

“I can read your mind, remember?” he says automatically, repeating the same line he’s told Harry multiple times.

“You need to teach me how to do that,” Harry says, eyelids half closed. He can already feel the alcohol he’s consumed sinking in.

“We’ll see,” he hears Zayn say as his hand travels slowly from Harry’s waist to his side, the effect of it making him sleepier.

Harry is half sleeping, already dreaming of the next adventure that he and Zayn are planning on doing when he feels Zayn’s lingering hand go under his shirt and run over his nipple, effectively making Harry open his eyes.

“I knew that’d work,” he says with a grin, looking Harry in the eye. “I just want to thank you.”

“For what?” he asks as he adjusts himself from underneath the blankets covering their bodies, making sure to be discreet so the other boy would not notice.

“For earlier,” Zayn says. “For standing up for me.”

“It was nothing,” Harry replies, mind occupied with hiding his hard-on.

“It was everything,” Zayn says, putting a hand on Harry’s face, caressing his cheek gently. His other hand travelling from Harry’s nape to his neck, to his chest. It makes this dick twitch in interest, his efforts wasted. _Good fucking grief._ “No one’s done that to me for ages.”

“I told you,” Harry says, casually trying to move away from Zayn to calm his hardening cock. “It was-”

And before he can finish, Zayn leans in for a kiss. It takes a couple seconds before his brain restarts, but eventually he kisses him back, making sure he opens his mouth to grant Zayn’s tongue entrance.

“Stop saying it was nothing,” Zayn says, panting once he separates from their kiss. He removes his shirt, revealing the beautifully littered tattoos covering his arms and body, and goes to sit on top of Harry. “And stop trying to hide your hard on, we’re going to be needing that.”

Harry replies by sitting up and beginning to suck a mark at the part where his shoulder and neck meet, making sure to bite and scratch as much as he can because it’s making Zayn make the most beautiful sounds.

Harry’s lips begin to move along Zayn’s neck and to his ear, making Zayn’s moans louden and Harry’s dick rock hard. Zayn pushes Harry away so he can fuss with the shirt Harry’s wearing.

“Take it off,” he says, out of breath. Harry complies.

Once the shirt has been disposed of, Zayn quickly reattaches his lips to Harry’s, biting and sucking on the tongue being offered to him. He can feel Zayn’s hands move towards each of his nipples, his teasing pinch makes Harry moan out a prayer and his dick spurt out precum.

“Zaaaayn,” Harry moans. “Shiiiitt.”

Zayn pushes him to lie on his back and makes a beeline towards Harry’s chest, making sure to leave a trail of kisses all over his chest. He gives each of the sparrows a peck, his mouth travelling to Harry’s nipple and beginning to suck.

It drives Harry to the edge at how amazing Zayn is at teasing him, he honestly thinks he’s going to come for the first time, untouched. Harry fiddles with the button of his jeans, trying to unbutton them. Zayn stops depositing kisses around his body and goes to help Harry unbutton his jeans.

Zayn proves to be an expert since he’s successful in unbuttoning their jeans at the first attempt. Once they’ve both wiggled out of their jeans, leaving both of them in their underwear, Harry shifts their position. He switches them, Harry on top and Zayn underneath him. He closely studies the tattoos covering his chest, making sure to - _finally_ \- kiss the kiss mark tattooed on his chest.

“You’re so hot,” Harry says, looking down at the beautiful creature below him. “So fucking hot.” He lets his hand run over the fabric of Zayn’s underwear, feeling the other boy’s dick twitch at his touch.

“Oh yeah?” Zayn says, his eyes going darker by the second. “You should do something about it.”

“Like what?”

Zayn guides Harry’s hand inside his briefs and he proactively gropes Harry’s dick, making Harry moan out in satisfaction. They jerk each other off, both of them creating pleased groans and moans, Harry thrusting into Zayn’s hand, loving the way he tightly grips his dick.

Zayn stops jerking him off and pulls him down on top of him so they can reunite their lips. Harry can almost taste the whiskey on Zayn’s lips.

“I want you to fuck me,” Zayn whispers in his ear, his words nearly making him come on the spot. _Nearly_.

“Are you sure?” Harry asks despite his protesting dick, “I don’t want to make you do-”

“I’m sure,” he says, kissing Harry chastely on the lips. Harry nods, completely removing each of their underwear, leaving them stark naked. He goes to pick up the tube of lube he got from Zayn’s stash from the bedside drawer and a condom, throwing them carelessly on the bed.

“W-want you in m-me,” Zayn says, sweat glistening on his gorgeous brown skin. “Hurry.”

Harry rushes to squirt a generous amount of lube on one finger. He hastily goes between Zayn’s legs and hovers above him. He watches how Zayn’s face transforms as he sinks one finger inside him. Zayn takes the finger in with no hint of pain present in his expression.

“Move,” he manages to say, eyes closed and sweat dripping. Harry goes to push his finger in and out as he studies Zayn’s sexed out face, the expression making Harry’s own dick spring in interest.

As soon as he adds a second finger, Zayn releases a sigh followed by the sound of his moaning. Harry makes his mouth busy by kissing Zayn from his ear, to his neck, all the way down to his navel whilst opening Zayn up.

Once Harry reaches Zayn’s cock, he looks up to find Zayn watching him with dark eyes, panting. He returns an equally dark look back before he takes him inside his mouth and begins to suck. His actions cause Zayn to gasp and groan loudly.

“Fucking hell, babe,” he says, short of breath. “D-don’t, don’t stop, _ugggh_.” Harrysucks him off, stopping at the tip to lick patterns on the tip of his cock, driving him even wilder.

He inserts another finger and continues to suck the living daylights out of him, savoring his litanies of “ _oh, fuck, fuck, fuck_ ” and “ _fuck, you’re so good._

“I’m going to come,” Zayn warns, trying to push Harry off of him. “I’m good, fuck me.”

And with that, Harry immediately goes to pick up the condom he threw on the bed, opening the packet using his teeth and quickly rolling it on his dick. He kisses Zayn, with his lips, tongue and teeth as he lines his cock up with Zayn’s entrance.

“Are you sure?” Harry asks a final time. He’s sure that if his dick could talk, it would’ve shouted curses at him for taking so long. Zayn nods vigorously, pulling Harry so he can finally get the tip inside, instantly making  both of them groan.

Harry slowly pushes inside, trying to be as gentle as he can so Zayn won’t hurt. Wanting to make sure he also  savors his first time with him. Zayn has both eyes closed, wrinkles showing in his forehead but nodding nonetheless whenever Harry asks him if he’s good. Once Harry  fully bottomed out, he gives Zayn time to adjust. Keeping still till he gets a go signal from the other boy.

“M-move,” Zayn says, running both of his hands through Harry’s short curls. “Fucking do something.” Harry replies by moving forward, making sure to control each thrust. Zayn accepts each thrust forward with a moan escaping his lips. Harry gradually speeds up, making Zayn grab the pink sheets they’re fucking on.

“Faster,” he commands Harry, gripping on the bars above his head. “F-faster, fuck me faster.” Harry does as he’s told, making sure to go on top speed to keep the other boy satisfied. He’s moaning himself, resting both his arms at the side of Zayn’s face,  his face probably looking  equally as wild as Zayn’s.

“You feel so fucking good, Zayn,” Harry says into Zayn’s ears, still thrusting as fast as he can. “ _Shit_.”

“Harder,” Zayn shouts, “H-harder, babe. P-please, harder.” He grants him his wish; Harry goes to sit and wraps Zayn’s legs around his waist. He pounds into him with a combination of speed and force. After a few more earth-shattering thrusts, Zayn is beginning to actually scream out his moans.

“FUCKING HELL, I’M CLOSE,” he screams. Harry didn’t know he had a fetish for screaming while having sex till now. He repeats the same motion over and over till he can barely understand what Zayn’s shouting out, aiming to make him come without wrapping a hand around him.

“I’m coming!” Zayn exclaims, making Harry thrust twice as fast and harder than before. He’s close to the edge as well, but he’ll make sure Zayn comes first. Wanting to know the face he will make when it’s Harry’s the one who’s making him that way.

“I’m come- I’m co,” he pants, thrusting forward, matching Harry’s pacing. A few more pushes and Zayn’s coming, his dick squirting out cum all over their bellies. Harry works him through his release, wrapping a hand around his cock and milking all the cum out.

“Stop,” Zayn says, trying to stop Harry from pounding into him. “Let me finish you off.” Harry gulps at that. Zayn goes to untangle his legs from Harry’s waist and pulls Harry towards him, making Harry sit on his chest. His hardened dick in the direction of Zayn’s mouth.

Zayn removes the condom Harry has on, throwing it on the bedside table, and positions his mouth at the tip. “Fuck my mouth, babe,” he says, “Same way you fucked me earlier.”

And with that, he pushes his dick inside Zayn’s mouth, releasing a sigh of pleasure at the feeling of Zayn licking the side of his dick the same time he sucks him. He can also feel Zayn’s hands travel from Harry’s thighs to his back, one of his fingers inserting a finger inside of him, making Harry empty inside of Zayn’s mouth. He stills at his sudden release, Zayn on the other hand, guides him to pound into his mouth back and forth. Letting out satisfied sounds as he swallows his cum.

They stay motionless for a good period of time, no talking, just breathing. Harry could say that he wasn’t prepared for this. He knew that wanking with Aladdin was something, but  sex with Zayn definitely was an out of this world experience he wouldn’t fucking mind doing every once in awhile - every day if he possibly can.

“That-” Zayn mumbles in after what felt like hours, “Was amazing.” He turns his head so he can face Harry, a hazy grin on his face. “We’re doing that again.”

 

**~ * ~**

It’s during the early hours when Harry untangles himself from Zayn to go pee. After that glorious moment with Zayn, they ended up sleeping while wrapped around each other’s arms. He gets of glimpse of his kiss-bruised body as he passes the mirror, appreciating the purple and red that Zayn placed on different parts of his body.

It’s crazy. He’s crazy, Harry thinks as he washes his hands after peeing. It’s crazy how things are changing so fast; how one minute, he was just an ordinary guy hoping to please the world, telling everybody he’s an ex-baker who volunteers during his spare time to impress everyone, to someone who’s a little bit more brave and reckless and.. Happy. Someone who cares a lot less about what others will say or think about him, and Zayn’s the reason for that. Yes, he’s done wilder things compared to the past, most of them being crazy and ( _sometimes_ ) illegal, but hey. They say people do crazy things when they’re in love.

 _Love._  

He’s hasn’t thought of someone in that way in a while. And funny thing is, he’s in love with him not because of his devilishly good looks, but because of his soft and caring heart. Yes, it’s cheesy, but what the fuck, apparently love also makes people cheesy.

Once he’s rejoined Zayn in bed, he tries to poke and prod him multiple times to try and get him to wake up. Unable to wait till the morning to tell him his epiphany: _that he’s in love with him_.

 _Sex drains the fuck out of him,_ Harry thinks, storing it in his mental list of things he knows about Zayn. Harry watches Zayn as he stays motionless, dead to the world, sleeping like a baby. He sighs as he wraps himself back in Zayn’s arms. He breathes in and breathes out, trying to keep his heart still.

“Could you keep it down with your breathing, babe?” Zayn says suddenly, eyes still closed and arms and legs still wrapped around Harry. “M’ trying to sleep ‘ere.”

 _Breathing loudly irritates him_ , Harry adds.

“Sorry,” Harry says, leaning down to peck him on the forehead and tightening the arm he has around him. “I was just thinking.”

“Of what?” Zayn asks, finally opening his eyes so he can look at Harry.

“Well,” Harry says, sitting still and making Zayn lie on the pillow to look at Harry eye to eye. “I’ve had this realization, and since I promised you that I’d be honest, might as well start now, right?”

Zayn looks at him with tired  and calculating eyes, making Harry slightly nervous over his lack of response. When Harry is opening his mouth to continue and just get on with his news, Zayn beats him.

“Yeah,” he says, also sitting up and facing Harry. “Me, too. I, uhm,  want to be honest too if that’s what we're doing.”

“Oh?” Harry asks, hopeful.

“Yeah,” he breathes out, fiddling with the blanket covering half their bodies. “Mind if I go first?” Harry shakes his head, smiling at him encouragingly.

“I know that I’ve sort of been secretive with you,” he starts. Harry’s ears perk up at the introduction. “So, I- I wanted to be honest for once.” He gives Harry a serious look. 

_Is he going to say what I think he’s going to say?_

“I wanted to tell you about what happened between me and my dad,” Zayn continues to say as he plays with a loose piece of thread on Harry’s pink comforter. “I know I told you before about that job that my dad didn’t like.”

“Okay,” Harry replies slowly, emphasizing his vowels.

“And I- I don’t honestly know how to tell you this but,” he continues, refusing to meet Harry’s eyes. “The reason why I don’t really say much about me is because there are a lot of things that I.. I’m ashamed of about myself.”

“Like what?” Harry asks, moving closer to him to put an arm around his shoulder.

“Like I dunno,” he says with a sigh and finally looking at Harry, his brown eyes conflicted. “Like me being a camboy.”

Harry was not prepared. He sits and looks at Zayn with a blank look on his face, not knowing whether to smile or frown or what to say to him. Yes, Harry has known for over a week now, bu, he didn’t expect Zayn to come clean to him in this early of a stage of their… _something_.

“Okay,” Harry says dumbly, wanting to smack his head on the bed frame because of his poor choices. _What the hell, why do I say the worst things at the wrong times?_

“Um yeah,” Zayn says, breaking his gaze from Harry and looking at the wall beside him, releasing a nervous sigh. “But I was thinking of like, quitting you know?”

“Quitting?” he parrots.

“Yeah,” Zayn replies, an embarrassed look present on his face. “I’ve already been making myself less available to clients which explains the hundreds of texts I receive every now and then, plus I already sent in my notice.”

“Really?” Harry asks, staring back at him. “But why?”

“What do you mean ‘why’?” Zayn scoffs, rolling his eyes at Harry, as if he’s asking a stupid question (Well, he sort of is). “It’s not exactly a good job and the plan is get a degree and be an English teacher and well-”

“Well what?”

“Well, I have you,” he says with a blush appearing on his cheeks. “And I don’t know, being with you feels like I got everything figured out. Does that sound crazy?” Harry smiles at him as he shakes his head, putting a hand on his cheek so he can look at him.

“No, not at all. I sort of feel the same,” Harry says, making the other boy smile back, laugh lines appearing on his face. “Ever since you forced me into breaking into Salt and Pepper’s house, I don’t know, I became braver, more sure of myself. It’s all cause of you.”

Zayn smiles and offers Harry a kiss on the cheek, his gaze full of fondness for the other boy.

“And so what if that’s what you do,” Harry continues, glad that he’s finally getting things off of his chest. “I don’t really give a fuck if you’re a camboy or what. I don’t.”

“Thank you. I can’t believe you're taking this so easily,” Zayn says in a relieved tone as he rests his head on Harry’s shoulder. “I mean, I’ve been wanting to come clean for ages, but I just didn’t know how. Usually when I tell people they take advantage of me or break up with me, there is no inbetween. Well, maybe except you.”

“Well, I’ve heard stranger things,” Harry lies, deciding to go with it. It wasn’t exactly what he was expecting from Zayn but it’s close enough. Knowing that gaining the other boy’s trust is already a huge accomplishment.

“I also wanted to thank you for standing up for me earlier,” Zayn says with a meaningful look on his face. “Nobody’s done that for me for ages.”

“What’s hard about that?” Harry asks, dimpling at him. “I mean, if Aladdin is treated by people like royalty, why not Zayn?” The smile on Zayn’s face disappears the moment Harry finishes his sentence - not exactly the expression he was expecting.

“What did you say?” Zayn asks, alarmed. Eyes big as saucers as he looks at Harry.

“I said if A-”

And that’s when Harry realizes the words that came out of his mouth. He looks down to find Zayn gaping at him, maybe also registering what Harry had said.

“You said ‘Aladdin,’” Zayn says, still looking perplexed. “How did you know that’s my screen name?”

_Oh fucking shit._

“Didn’t you say that earlier?” Harry asks, hoping he can get away with it, praying that Zayn will let this go.

“No, I clearly remember saying that I was a camboy and that’s it,” Zayn says, looking at Harry with pinched eyebrows. “How did you know about that?”

Harry opens and closes his mouth, unable to think of a way around the situation. _Why didn’t he just come clean with Zayn when he had the chance?_

“Well?” Zayn demands as he jumps out the bed, looking at Harry questioningly.

Harry releases a deep breath and goes to stare Zayn in the eyes, thinking that there’s no better way to say it than to just give it to him directly. No more beating around the bush, no more secrets. “I’m a client,” he says as explanation, making Zayn step backwards and look at him with wide eyes. “I’m Eric.”

“What?” Zayn asks, his mouth forming a small letter _‘o’_. “Eric?”

“Yeah.”

“Eric, as in, beanie and sunglasses Eric?” Zayn asks, the information sinking into his head. Harry nods at him, making Zayn take a few more steps back and run towards the clothes lying on the floor.

“Zayn wait, I can explain,” he says as he jumps out of the bed and puts some boxers on, not caring if there are cum stains on them.

“Why didn’t you tell me it was you?” Zayn demands, putting his pants on and zipping them tight. He grabs the shirt next and puts it on. Harry hears him sigh in frustration. “No wonder I saw you with that red-headed dick. He put you up to this? Didn’t he?”

“No,” Harry says, trying to calm him by putting his hands up in surrender. “I’ve never met the guy before I swear it. I would never-”

“Oh yeah?” Zayn says, sitting on the swivel chair to put his shoes and socks on. “I remember you telling me before about that red-head guy you fell on top of.”

“I never saw him after that incident,” Harry explains, putting his pants on. He’s not going to let him get away. “The next time I saw him was at Niall’s friend’s party.”

“Bullshit.”

“Believe me, Zayn,” Harry begs as he puts a shirt on.

Zayn crosses the room without giving Harry a second look, passing by the picture of him and the lads in graduation togas. “What is it then?” he says frustratedly, showing Harry the picture. “Was it that streaking bet with your friends?”

“What?” Harry exclaims, looking at Zayn wildly. “Do you even hear yourself right now? We were just fooling around, it was nothing serious.”

“Yeah right,” Zayn scoffs. He exits the room, his footsteps echoing outside the hallway. Harry goes to chase after him. “I knew you were just lying and using me.”

“Look who’s talking anyway,” Harry says at his back, anger in his tone. “You haven't been completely honest with me in the first place, either.”

"Like it was going to be that easy, Harry," Zayn says coldly over his shoulder as they trudge down the stairs. “Hi, I'm Zayn. I like you a lot. And oh by the way, I jack myself off in front of a camera for a living. I hope that won’t be a problem!" His tone is laced with sarcasm.

"It wouldn't have mattered to me!" Harry exclaims, grabbing Zayn's wrist as soon as he’s within arm’s reach and pulling him towards him.

"Oh really? Is that true?" he asks exasperatedly, looking at Harry with wet eyes. They stand alone in the empty staircase, only their angry voices disturbing the serene silence.

“Yes!” Harry shouts at him.

“Then how do you explain this?” he says, showing the tube of lube that was next to his picture with the lads, the same tube Harry pocketed from Zayn’s stash the other day.

“This doesn’t even mean anything,” Harry says, throwing the lube away. The sound of it hitting the handles of the stairs, echoing. “I was going to tell you the other day but I overheard you say I love you to your boyfriend!”

“What boyfriend?” Zayn asks with a confused look on his face. “I don’t have one, Harry!”

“Oh yeah?” Harry says, challenged. “Who’s Don, then? If he isn’t a boyfriend, who is he? Another client? Another person you’re making fall in love with you? Are your clients the real reason why your phone’s ringing every damn second or is it him?”

Harry cannot help but feel fury, not at Zayn but at the situation they’re in. He was hoping that they'd move forward after Harry’s disappearance and after the intimacy in Harry’s dorm but he’s having one of those shitty, god-awful days again.

“Is this part of your crazy list, Zayn?” Harry asks, unable to hold his tongue. “Break someone’s heart?”

Zayn looks at him, looking like a deer caught in headlights. He takes a few steps backwards as he shakes his head. “No it isn’t,” Zayn answers after a while. He’s at the end of the stairs, looking up at Harry with a disappointed look. “And it isn’t my list, Harry. It’s yours.” He takes a familiar piece of paper out of his (Harry’s) leather jacket and throws it away. Harry watches Zayn walk away towards the exit.

"And Don is short for Doniya," Zayn grumbles, leaping down the stairs and heading towards the doorway.

_Oh. shit._

"Zayn," Harry calls him, “I care about you, I just, I didn't know what to do with the fact that you were Aladdin. I'm sorry."

“Really, Harry?” he says over his shoulder, his back at Harry. “Was is really that hard to love me as Zayn and not as Aladdin?” And without listening to Harry's response, he runs outside, leaving Harry stare at what once was his shadow.

 

**~ * ~**

 

Harry never had his heart broken like this before. He remembers that time during freshman year when Niall's girlfriend broke up with him and he was devastated for months. Niall was so upset with the break up that he refused to go out on Satur _yays_ and even just called them regular Saturdays.

Harry thought he was over-reacting, he always thought that breaking up was easy. That all you have to do is stop speaking and seeing someone and then _bam_ , you've moved on. But boy, was he wrong.

He tried to look for Zayn on the night they fought, even recruiting the lads, including Louis, to go around town and look for him but they all failed, heading back inside Harry’s dorm at around five in the morning, exhausted after scouting all of Zayn’s favorite places. (Which were quite a lot.)

Since then, which was about three days ago, Harry hasn’t left his dorm, not even bothering to go to class. The only time Harry opens his door and steps out the room is whenever he hears footsteps outside or a door opening. He instantly feels disappointed whenever he discovers that it’s not a certain neighbor with a sexy voice. Harry comforts himself by feeding himself countless disgusting Oreos.

"Have you tried asking the admissions office?" Niall asks, looking over the list of possible places where Zayn could be.

After going ghost for a couple of days and avoiding each and every one of the lads’ calls and texts, his best friends, mainly Louis, knocked on his door and demanded that he open it, threatening to break it open if he doesn’t.

"Yep,” Liam says, looking over Niall's shoulder to go through the list of addresses that Zayn could possibly be at. “All we got was a door slammed in our faces.”

Niall crosses something on the list and goes over the next one. “What about Sophia?” he asks him next.

“Wouldn’t budge,” Liam says, “I tried to ask her multiple times but she threatened to break up with me.”

Harry listens to Liam and Niall’s exchange as he stares at the wall with a blank expression on his face. He remembers Zayn and the list, the same list stored inside Harry’s pocket, the same list Zayn threw away just before he disappeared.

He watches them scroll through their laptops and pieces of paper, trying to investigate Zayn’s whereabouts. He looks at one side and notices Louis typing something out on his phone, eyebrows scrunched and looking equally blank as Harry.

“What about-” Niall is about to ask.

“Just stop,” Harry says, hopeless. Making the three of them look up from their phones, laptops and papers with a dubious expression on their faces. “It’s hopeless.”

“We haven’t tried looking for him in-”

"Zayn doesn't want to be found!" Harry exclaims, standing up and retrieving the paper with the list of addresses from Niall and crumpling it into a ball. "He doesn't want to work things out anymore. It's over. Just- just forget about it.”

“I’m sure he’s just taking his time, Harry,” Liam says comfortingly, sitting beside him and patting him at the back. “I know it’s hard-”

“No, you don’t,” Harry whines, falling back onto his bed and covering his face with a pillow. “You don’t understand.”

“Would you quit being a drama queen, Styles,” he hears Louis say, his footsteps echoing throughout the room. He feels the bed dip, indicating that Louis moved from his seat on the floor to Harry’s bed. “We’re the ones helping you out here.”

“Well, I didn’t ask for your help!” Harry retorts, sitting up and throwing the pillow he was covering his face with on the floor. “You don’t have to do stuff people don’t ask you to do.”

“Are you complaining about us helping you out?” Louis shoots back, standing up and crossing his arms, a way of making himself look intimidating.

“Yes!” Harry says, standing to meet him at eye level. “If you hadn’t told me Zayn was Aladdin in the first place, this wouldn’t have happened.”

“So you’re blaming us because we were looking out for you?” Louis asks, his voice full of rage. “We were just telling you the truth.”

“It wasn’t your secret to tell,” Harry says, turning his back on him, trying to control his tongue so he wouldn’t lose his friends the same way he lost Zayn. He counts to ten to control his temper, and once he is confident he’ll be able to deliver his words calmly, he releases a sigh.

“You don’t understand, Lou,” Harry continues to say, voice low. “I know you don’t think that much of Zayn and I know you’re just being the good friend you are and I really like that about you, Lou. It’s just that, It’s getting too much. I really like Zayn. I really liked what I had with him. Being with him.. It was just different. I felt different, and not different in a reckless way. More like in a braver way.”

Harry turns around to see his three best mates looking back, questions dancing in their eyes. “And I feel like if I’m back to same old lame me again,” Harry tells them, “Like I’m twice the wimp that I was before.”

“That’s not true, Haz,” Liam says, approaching him and doing what he does best which is comfort him.

“I feel like it is,” he tells him, slumping down on the bed.

“Don’t give up, Harry,” Niall says cheerfully, trying to save the mood of the room. “We’ll find him.”

“That’s the thing, Ni,” Harry says. “I mean, how do you find a person who doesn’t want to be found?” Niall and Liam look at each other, their expressions thoughtful. It’s hopeless, Harry thinks. They’ve already tried all the possible hiding places where Zayn could stay but he is nowhere to be found.

“Well,” Louis says, deciding to be the one to disturb the serenity inside the room. “Remember that movie I loved to watch? The one where they got drunk and looked for someone important?”

“Why is that relevant right now?” Liam asks, bewildered. “We’re in the middle of a man hunt right now, we have no time for your movies, Lou.”

“I have a point,” Louis says sternly, a finger raised up.

“ _The Hangover_?” Niall answers him, with an equally perplexed look on his face as Liam’s. “Why?" 

“Remember when everyone was using all these stupid clues trying to pinpoint the whereabouts of their missing friend in the movie?” he asks, looking at each of them. “And remember how utterly useless those clues are?”

“If you’re trying to say that what me and Liam are doing is useless then you can bugger of, Tomlinson,” Niall retorts.

“You’re all missing my point,” he exclaims, rolling his eyes. “In the movie, they all went through movies and maps and still failed cause you wanna know why?”

“Just fucking say it, Lou,” Niall grumbles.

“Because they didn’t try looking for their friend at the most obvious place,” Harry answers for him, a lightbulb lighting in his head. He looks at Louis who is already smiling. “Shit, Lou.”

He smiles at Harry smugly, taking an Oreo from the packet Harry is currently eating from, toasting it to no one in particular.

“I know. I’m a genius.”

 

**~ * ~**

Harry finds himself staring at the dorm across his as soon as the lads left and wished him luck. He suddenly has flashbacks to those days when Zayn would sneak into his dorm without being spotted or heard. Remembers those times when he would turn around and would be scared to find Zayn sitting down somewhere in his dorm eating Oreos, staring at him.

And with the help of Louis’ ‘Hangover Theory’ and Harry’s need to remember everything he knows about Zayn in a mental list, they found where Zayn is, which is simply at the dorm next door. Louis testing his theory by pressing his ear to Zayn’s door and hearing faint sounds of music coming from the other side.

Harry stares at the door for a long time, clutching their list in one hand and another hand raised up, about to knock. He rehearses the speech he prepared for Zayn as he stands there motionless, hesitant but also determined in some way. It’s funny how he can now fearlessly do more exciting stuff compared to before, but cannot simply knock on a door.

_Okay, I’m going to do it. Three - Two - One._

His fist is just a few inches away from the door, about to knock, when Zayn surprises him by opening the door, making Harry startle. He clasps his chest, steadying his beating heart. Harry looks up to find Zayn doing the exact same.

“You almost gave me a cardiac arrest,” Zayn says, eyes still wide and hands still over his chest.

“Sorry,” Harry replies, standing up properly to look Zayn in the eye, releasing a breath. He looks at Zayn properly after what feels like a long time, taking in his handsome face, fit body dressed in ripped jeans and a maroon jumper that covers most of the tattoos on his body, and some black combat boots. Beside his legs, Harry notices a suitcase and a big brown box with Harry’s jacket lying on top of it.

Harry looks from the suitcase to Zayn with a puzzled look on his face and mouth wide open. “Zayn?” he manages to asks, gesturing towards the baggages. “What’s that?”

“A suitcase and a box?” Zayn answers, addled.

“No. I know what it is,” Harry says, shaking his head. Not willing his mind to think of worst case scenarios because the reason why he’s there is because of his plan to fix things with Zayn. “What does this mean?”

“Well,” he starts, releasing a sigh and stepping outside the apartment with his suitcase and closing the door shut behind him. “What do you think it means?”

“I don’t know,” Harry replies, not letting the words escape his mouth.  “You tell me.”

“Harry,” Zayn starts to say, his voice determined. He looks at the floor, not wanting to make eye contact with Harry. “I’m- I’m leaving.” It takes a while for the words to register in his head even when he knows that that was the most logical answer.

“But why?” Harry asks, taking a tentative step towards him. “Why would you do that? What about your degree? What about everything?”

He looks up to give Harry a defeated look but sounds adamant as he says, “I already have a career.” He shrugs, gripping onto the suitcase. “I mean, I’m already good at it. Why quit?”

“Why not quit?” Harry asks, raising his eyebrows at him. “I- I thought you already sent in your notice and everything. What about the plan? I thought you planned on being an English teacher, I thought..”

“Plans change,” he says, suddenly interested in looking at the floor again. “I don’t belong here anyway.”

“No,” Harry says fiercely, taking a few steps towards Zayn and grabbing the suitcase from him. “That’s not true.”

“Harry, please,” Zayn says, tired. Trying to retrieve his suitcase from Harry. “Don’t make this harder than it already is.”

“And don’t take the easy way out,” Harry shoots back, trying to prevent Zayn from grabbing the suitcase from him. “You’ve taught me to be more confident over the last few months and look at you now.”

“This is different!”

“It’s the same!” Harry replies, letting go of the suitcase the same time Zayn gives up in trying to get it. “It’s the exact fucking same and you’re scared to try it out. Why? I know you Zayn, you’re not like this. You’re braver than this.”

“No you don’t, Harry,” he shouts, taking a step forward to Harry. “You think you know me but you don’t.”

“Yeah, I actually do,” Harry tells him, matching Zayn’s determined voice and also taking a step towards him.

“NO, YOU DON’T!” Zayn yells at him, making Harry swallow what he was about to say, mouth dangling open at Zayn’s unexpected outburst. “I know _you_ though, Harry. You make lists in your head about what you want in a lover, like nice hair and a sweet voice. A sharp mind and a soft heart, a sense of humor that actually makes you laugh like you mean it. This and that. If you really know the real me, Harry, then you should have realized by now that I don’t meet any of those criteria. I’m not the guy in your mental list. I’m just me. Plain me.”

Harry’s grip on their list tightens, looking at Zayn with newfound purpose. He completely takes the space separating the both of them till they’re chest to chest, staring fiercely into each other’s eyes. Both determined to make each of their points.

“I may not know everything about you but I know enough,” Harry says. “Like I know you like Oreos, you eat them like how it’s advertised, twisting them open, licking the cream and dunking it in milk. You like space and stars and I’m sure if you weren’t an English major, you’d study astronomy. You’re a deep sleeper but I figured that breathing heavily into your ear will make your eyes snap open.”

He takes a breath after enumerating a portion of things he knows about the other boy. Zayn is staring at him with calculating eyes, like he’s anticipating what words will come out of his mouth next.

“You hide that good, gentle heart of yours with the bad boy facade you put on every day. Like, I see you put your guard down from time to time, Zayn. I do. I also know that as soon as you’ve realized that your walls are down, you put them up again like what you’re doing to me now. You’ve let your guard down by letting me in and now you’re pushing me away,” Harry continues, on a roll. “And you say you can read my mind but I don’t think that’s true, Zayn cause if it is, you’d know that my head is screaming _‘stay’_ at you right now.”

Zayn takes a step back as Harry catches his breath, focusing his gaze on the paper Harry had dropped while he was trying to prove his point to Zayn. He goes to pick it up and unfold it. Harry knows that he’s read what Harry wrote, what he added in their list.

“Harry, I can’t,” Zayn whispers, eyes focused on the list. “I can’t.”

“And I won’t force you,” Harry tells him, managing to make his voice sound calm. “But it’s something you need to eventually learn.”

Zayn looks up at him, eyes wet. Harry would like very much to envelop him in his arms but he stays rooted in place, looking back at him.

“You told me before that this is my stupid list,” Harry says after a long pause. “But it’s yours as much as mine.”

The staring contest begins, Harry’s eyes begging Zayn to check the last thing on their bucket list. It goes on for minutes till Zayn releases a breath a takes a few steps towards Harry. He watches Zayn, his heart jumping at each step he takes and once they’re only inches apart, Zayn finds his voice. 

“I’m sorry, Harry,” he says quietly, making Harry’s heart drop on the floor. “But I’m just not the guy who you need to check this off of the list with.” He returns the paper to Harry, grabs the suitcase sitting by Harry’s legs as well as his others things and takes off.

Leaving Harry staring at his handwriting: _trust someone to take care of your heart._

 

**~ * ~**

 

Harry drags his feet towards the auditorium where Salt and Pepper has been holding his classes for the past few weeks, making sure to take the seat at the back, not caring about what the person at the front has to say about some stupid report Salt and Pepper made him do. He thinks it’s highly convenient that Salt and Pepper has combined all his classes together, making it close to impossible for their professor to see him not listen and engage in whatever activity he has planned for them today.  

He takes out his notebook and begins to doodle something at the back page and just when he’s half-complete with his masterpiece, the auditorium chairs beside him makes a ruckus, making him look up to find Niall, Liam and Louis taking the seats beside him. 

“Hey,” Liam says from Harry’s right. “Our class was moved to this time so that’s why we're here,” he says, answering the questions dancing inside Harry’s head. Harry nods at him in response, not really in the mood to talk and goes back to doodling what looks like a bird.

The silence doesn’t even last two minutes, Louis disturbing the peace by grabbing Harry’s notebook and looking at the drawing. “You need to work on the shading,” he says as Harry steals his notebook from him. Harry answers by covering the page of his drawing, grunting under his breath because the only contact he craves is a certain neighbor with a sexy voice.

“Leave him alone, Lou,” he hears Liam say, the two of them bickering, with Harry in the middle of the chaos.

“It’s going to be alright, Haz,” Niall says from beside Liam (who’s currently telling Louis to fuck off and be considerate and Louis replying with his middle finger).

Niall reaches over Liam to pat Harry on the leg comfortingly. “After all this is through, I promise we’ll look for Zayn again.”

“I don’t think I want to do that anymore, Ni,” Harry says, still continuing to draw the bird. Not wanting to hear the name that’s behind his foul mood and broken heart despite him missing him badly.

“Why not?” Liam asks, looking from Louis to Harry, his tone shifting from pissed to comforting.

“Zayn doesn’t want to, he can’t,” he answers simply, adding some finishing touches on the drawing of the bird. “He said so himself.” He puts the notebooks down, looking at the finished drawing.

“I’m sure he doesn’t mean it,” says Liam, putting an arm around the back of Harry’s chair.

“Pretty sure he did,” Harry replies blankly.

“Well, I don’t believe it,” Niall says, looking over the drawing and studying it. He grabs the pen from Harry and draws a second bird next to it. “Even swallows need company when they go away.”

Harry looks at Niall with a puzzled look on his face and turns to his drawing that is indeed a swallow. He runs his free hand on his chest, right on top of the tattoos Zayn made him get.

“What did you say?” Harry asks.

“I said even swallows need company when they go away,” Niall repeats. “My granddad used to say that swallows don’t usually go far away without a friend. Two swallows mean-”

“The start of a journey,” Harry says, repeating the same words Zayn said when they got the tattoos on his chest.

“Yeah,” Niall says, looking from Harry to the stage. “So, if he’s going away like he says he is, I’m sure he won’t go too far.” He smiles at Harry a final time and focuses on the guy on the stage.

He sits there and thinks of Niall’s story, comparing it to Zayn’s who happens to have a single swallow tattoo at the back of his hand. A flashback comes to him _Pirates consider swallows as a sign of hope._

“You’re right,” Harry mumbles, standing up and grabbing all his things. “I need to-”

“Mr Smiles!” someone says from the end of the aisle of seats, a certain someone with salt and pepper hair making Harry internally groan.

“Uh, sir?” he says, still putting his things back in his bag. “May I be excused please? I-”

“No you may not,” he says, emphasizing each word. “This is your last chance.”

Harry looks at him, confused. “Last chance?” he asks.

Salt and Pepper dramatically sighs as he rolls his eyes at Harry. “You know what?” he says, “Do what you may but once I call your name on stage and you don’t show up, you fail!” And with that, he walks off.

“Was I supposed to do something?” Harry asks his friends, trying to rack his brains for an assignment he may have missed while he was moping over Zayn. His attention turns to the guy on the stage, the same guy whose family’s friend is John Legend.

“And that’s it. I will never forget-” Guy who's friends with John Legend says.

_Oh shit, the speech._

He gives Louis, Liam and Niall a crazed look. “Shit!” he squeaks under his breath. “I forgot all about this speech.” He takes the things out of his bags and begin to go through his notebooks in a rush, looking for the speech he wrote.

“Well, will it be too late if we run back to the dorms to get it?” Liam asks, looking from the guy taking a bow on the stage to a hectic Harry.

“I won’t make it in time if I do,” Harry says, defeated. Aside from the drawing of the swallows, his notebooks are empty. All his notes saved in his laptop. _Damn it_

“Thank you very much, Mr Smith,” Salt and Pepper says into his microphone, patting the guy on the back. “Up next we have Happy Smiles.”

_Happy Smiles?!_

He can hear Niall snicker at Salt and Pepper’s introduction. Harry looks at his friends, not knowing what to do.

“There’s one thing left for you to do, Styles,” Louis says, reading Harry’s expression.

“What is it?” Harry says as he gets to his feet, walking slowly towards the stage, sweat dripping down his face.

“You improvise,” Louis says as he reaches the end of the aisle of chairs.

Harry takes his time walking towards the stage despite his professor’s complaints, breathing in and out and trying to think of what to say. Once he reaches the stage and is staring back at all of Salt and Pepper’s classes, he releases a deep breath that echoes throughout the auditorium, making Salt and Pepper scold him.

“Um, hi,” Harry says into the microphone. The crowd doesn’t say hi back as he had hoped for. He looks at his friends in the back and they help out by giving Harry encouraging thumb ups.

“Uhh,” he says, putting his hands inside his pockets, his hand finding a folded paper inside. He takes it and discovers their, his and Zayn’s, list. He remembers what this list taught him, what it made Harry become.

Suddenly, his brain starts to work again. He places the list on the podium, looking at the whispering crowd and at an impatient professor.

“Someone once told me that I shouldn't start the speech with the title of the speech,” Harry begins, making the crowd chuckle. “That someone said it sounded cliche, and I’ve decided he’s right. It _does_ sound cliche.” The audience laughs again.

“Well, what will I always remember?” he begins, starting to feel comfortable. “Well, I actually made this list of impressive things I want to tell you, like the time I volunteered for Red Cross and that time I donated all nine inches of my hair to this charity but my advisor told me it made me look like an asswipe.” Harry sees Salt and Pepper smirk and nod in agreement as the audience laughs.

“And I know I was supposed to tell everyone about the one thing that I won’t forget but before I do, I want to tell you all a story,” Harry tells them, grabbing the microphone and walking to the center of the stage. “At the early part of the year, someone moved to the dorm that’s across mine, that same someone is the advisor I was telling you all about. See, we made this deal, that I’d give him a copy of my key and let him into my dorm to use my school supplies and take my food.”

Harry hears someone from the crowd ask why. 

“Why? Well, funny story, I walked in on him naked,” he says matter-of-factly, nodding towards the laughing spectators. “Yeah, he didn’t have anything on and yeah, I saw his willy too, it was really nice. But anyway, I’m not here to talk about my neighbor’s perfect willy, though it is something I will never forget.”

The auditorium is filled with laughter, Harry already thinking of trying stand up comedy.

“Anyway, back to the story. Quit disrupting me,” he says with a smile. “So one day, I was writing my speech, right? I was listing down the stuff I told you earlier like the volunteering and stuff when he sneaked up on me and said that the speech I was writing was like a resume to be canonized as a saint.”

Harry takes a seat on the stage, feet dangling. He has the crowd’s full attention. “So he made me a deal,” he continues, feet swinging. “That he’d help me write this speech so I could somehow make an impact, and I agreed of course because I was hoping Mr Simons’ would finally get my name right.”

He hears Salt and Pepper say _‘I know your name is really Harry Styles, Mr Smiles,’_ from the sidelines.

“Oh, you did?” Harry asks him, voice sounding outraged. “After all these months?” Salt and Pepper only shrugs at him whilst smirking at him.

“You’re evil but that’s fine, Mr. Simons, because remember that time someone broke into your pool? That was me and my advisor. It wasn’t Montgomery.” Harry says, making the old man’s face turn from smug to shocked.

“I told you,” he hears someone shout from the audience. Harry’s guessing it’s Montgomery. He sneaks a glance at Salt and Pepper before he continues and sees him shaking his head with (thankfully) a grin plastered on his face.

“Anyway, back to my story. This isn’t about you Mr. Simons, you’re forgettable,” Harry jokes, making everyone laugh. “So, my neighbor slash advisor, made me do crazy stuff. We had this list-” he shows everyone the crumpled paper, “and it had stuff on it like, play mini golf while drunk, go to crazy underground parties no one knows about, get chest tattoos..”

Harry’s eyes scan the crowd as he tells them all about the things that he and Zayn did in the list, noting the laugh lines in almost everyone’s faces. He was in the middle of telling everyone about that time he and Zayn broke into a bar to get into one of their favorite band’s secret shows when he sees a flash of black, raven hair. He shifts his attention back to the source of hair and gasps at the image of Zayn, with his arms crossed, standing at the back, listening to Harry’s speech.

He realizes that he’s zoned out when he hears Louis clear his throat loudly, Harry shaking his head to get back into focus. “Sorry,” he tells the crowd, eyes not leaving Zayn. “I zoned out there. Where was I? Oh right, I gave him a boost so he could go through the bar’s open window and he opened the door from the inside. I remember almost puking on the bassist’s shoes, we were so drunk that time.”

Zayn takes a seat at one of the empty chairs at the back, eyes also not leaving Harry’s.

“You know, before, I wouldn’t have imagined myself breaking into professors’ houses or sneaking into bars, let alone drinking on a school night,” he continues to say, his heart leaps when he sees Zayn chuckle. “I guess I could say that I used to be a straight arrow or something but that all changed when a certain neighbor of mine with a sexy voice and cute chuckle sneaked up on me. You see, he didn’t just teach me to be spontaneous or rebellious or something. He taught me to take risks and be brave.”

Zayn smiles at him, Harry pauses his speech to smile at him back. “I think my neighbor re-learned the same lesson as well, but learning to take risks, take chances, and to be brave are lessons I will carry with me forever.”

“So for me, unlike some of you, I’ll never forget that neighbor or mine,” Harry says, eyes digging into Zayn’s. “Sometimes, the best things to always remember are the people who taught you important lessons, those people who grounded you.” The crowd goes silent as the mood of Harry’s speech progresses from comedic to serious.

“So I’ll always remember my neighbor with the sexy voice,” he concludes. “Zayn Malik, I will always remember you.” He receives a standing ovation from the spectators, Salt and Pepper giving him two thumbs up as he smiles at the crowd and goes to leave the stage.

He makes a beeline towards Zayn, who’s currently abandoning his seat and exiting the auditorium, he gestures towards Harry to follow him and he does.

 

**~ * ~**

Harry finds Zayn outside in the empty hallway, leaning against the wall wearing Harry’s leather jacket and some ripped jeans and white converse. He looks up at Harry, eyelashes fanning as he stares at him. The usual silence occupies the hallway, only it’s the comfortable kind, not the tense one. The silence drags on for minutes, both not knowing what to say or do. It’s only been a few days but Harry missed him. Though he tried to forget or be happy for the other boy, his heart just couldn’t agree. Seeing him now with only inches separating them, it takes Harry a lot of will to not  run up to the boy and hold him in his arms.

“So,” Harry says, not able to hold his tongue any longer. “How did I do?”

Zayn smirks at him as he takes a few steps towards Harry, “I’d give you a 90,” he says. Harry gives him an outraged expression. “Hey, Salt and Pepper was going to give you an 89, so I’m being nice.”

“He is not,” Harry protests, trying to keep the light mood between the two of them.

“He is too,” Zayn replies with a roll of his eyes. “Wanna bet?”

Harry takes a step towards Zayn, hand clasped around their list. “So,” he starts to say, going nearer and nearer the other boy. “Did you like the speech? What was your favorite part?”

“Uhm,” Zayn says, “I liked the part where you said you’ll never forget my willy.” Harry laughs at that, his dimples making an appearance.

“Well, it _is_ unforgettable,” Harry says. 

Once they’re nearly chest to chest, Harry also notices Zayn holding a paper in his hand. He looks from the hand to Zayn.

“You must be wondering what I’m doing here,” Zayn says, answering the question that’s starting to form inside Harry’s head. Harry nods at him. “I’ve been thinking about what you said and what you added on your - _our_ list.”

“Yeah?” Harry asks.

“Yeah, and you’re right,” he says as he releases a breath. “All this time I’ve been depriving myself of things that could make me happy, like spending time with my family, having friends, falling in love..”

He looks at Harry with newfound determination on his face. He unfolds the list he has in his hand and takes out a familiar pink pen from his pocket. “And I’ve decided that I should start a list of my own,” he continues, “Teach myself to be brave and take risks like you’ve said in your speech.”

“Yeah?” Harry asks, grinning from ear to ear. “What does that mean, then?”

“Can you take a wild guess?”

Harry answers by unfolding the paper he has in his hands and grabbing the pink pen from Zayn.

“Can I check the last thing off of my list?” Harry asks, already uncapping his pen.

“You mean _our_ list,” Zayn says, correcting him. A happy smile on his face as Harry checks off _trust someone to trust someone to take care of your heart._

Once Harry has checked that off of the list, he drops the list and pen on the floor, approaches Zayn and envelops him in a tight embrace. And finally, they kiss. It is the type of kiss Harry knows would last a lifetime. The type of kiss he’ll never get tired of receiving, especially from the same person who’s kissing him now.

“You taste like shit,” Zayn says once they part, a dopey smile on his face. “You been eating my Oreos?”

Harry smiles back at him and kisses him as an answer.

**~ * ~**

 

“I TAKE IT BACK,” Louis screams from inside of the empty classroom, his voice muffled due to the closed door separating him and the other lads from Zayn and Harry. “I DON’T LIKE YOU, ZAYN, YOU NEVER SHOULD HAVE COME BACK.”

Zayn laughs as he leans against the wall with his arms crossed. “A deal’s a deal, Lou,” he says, knocking on the door. “Don’t make me break open this door.” They hear an audible groan from the other side, groans belonging to three people, three people who apparently lost a bet with Harry.

“They don’t have to do it, you know,” Harry tells Zayn quietly but preparing his camera phone nonetheless because this is something that needs to be documented. “I mean, they could just buy us drinks or something.”

“Where’s the fun in that?” Zayn says, eyes shining brightly. He walks towards the door and knocks on it as hard as he can, making the three lads inside create startling sounds inside. “Okay, I’m going to count up to five. If you don’t run out, I will break this door open and Harry will start taking pictures of your little willies and post them on the internet.”

“Can’t we talk about this, mate?” Niall says, “I have thirty quid and a Starbucks gift card in my jeans.” Harry rummages through Niall’s jeans and finds the money and coupons.

“We’ll take the money and Starbucks coupons,” Zayn says, pocketing the money and coupons. “But you’re still doing this.” Harry snickers at the sound of Niall cursing lividly.

“I’ll start the countdown,” Harry says, giving his poor friends a head’s up. “ _One_ -”

“Wait, Harry, Let’s talk!” Liam’s voice comes in next.

“Two,” Zayn counts, a boyish grin on his face.

Their cursing increases in volume, making both of them snicker.

“Three,” Harry says over his his laughs, “Four-”

And before Zayn can finally end the countdown, the door bursts open, revealing Louis, Liam and Niall stark naked. They run out the room and through the hallways, hands covering their dicks. Harry’s howls of laughter are heard across the building as he focuses his camera on the lads running in the quads, passing by a repulsed-looking salt and pepper haired man.

Once they’re out of their view, he looks to his side to find Zayn, _his boyfriend_ , massaging his tummy with one hand and saving the video of the lads on his phone with the other.

“So what’s next on the list?” Harry asks him, putting an arm around his waist.

“Uhh,” Zayn says, taking out a clean sheet of paper out his pocket and consulting it. “So, we’re done visiting my parents, making the lads streak, next is-” He looks up at Harry, a suspicious smirk on his face.

“What is it?” Harry asks, raising an eyebrow at him. Zayn shows him the paper and Harry guffaws at what’s next.

“No,” Harry says, shaking his head as he laughs. “We’ve been through this already.”

 _SEX IN PUBLIC,_ the list reads.

“I’ll do that thing with my tongue,” Zayn says into his ear, making Harry’s traitorous dick harden.

Harry sighs as he turns to face a smug-looking Zayn. “Might as well do that,” Harry says, “But I want it to be people free and sanitized.”

“Fine,” Zayn says with a grin, pulling Harry inside the room the lads evacuated and locking the door.

**Author's Note:**

> Based of the prompt/s:  
> 'I can’t believe I had the terrible luck to move in beside my favorite cam boy and I have to act cool’  
> & 'Uni AU where Zayn tutors Harry'
> 
> -
> 
> Tumblr: zarrie.tumblr.com


End file.
